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Vi 


The  Church's  Creed,  or  the  Crown's  Creed  ? 


A.    LETTER 


The  Most  Rev.  Archbishop  Manning, 


ranj. 


EDMUND  S.  FFOULKES,  B.D., 

AUTHOH    OF    "CHRISTENDOM'S   DIVISIONS." 


"  First  cast  out  the  beam  out  of  thine  own  eye,  and  then  shalt  thou  see 
clearly  to  cast  out  the  mote  out  of  thy  brother's  eye."— /S.  Matt.  yii.  5. 


NEW  YORK : 

POTT  &  AMERY,   COOPER  UNION. 

1869. 


HAETFORD  :  CHUECH  PBESS   COMPANY. 


A    LE 


^^'^'^'^r 


i_  Library. 


My  Lord  Archbishop  : — I  take  the^^fi^^ef^iof:- 
ting  the  question  to  you  in  your  official  capacity,  which 
forms  the  heading  of  my  letter,  and  I  invite  public 
opinion  in  this  country  to  weigh  dispassionately  what- 
ever answer  you  may  be  pleased  to  return  to  it,  or  else 
to  draw  such  conclusions  from  your  silence  as  the  nature 
of  the  case  may  suggest,  should  you  resolve  on  letting  it 
pass  unheeded. 

It  is  not,  however,  solely  by  any  means  on  account  of 
the  exalted  position  which  you  occupy  that  I  address 
myself  to  you.  We  were  neither  of  us  born  or  bred  in 
the  Communion  in  which  we  now  are.  The  evidences 
which  determined  you  to  embrace  the  Communion  of 
the  Church  of  Rome,  for  the  most  part  determined  me 
likewise.  You  preceded  and  I  followed  :  yet  I  neither 
followed  you  nor  any  one  else  blindly,  as  a  party  leader. 
According  to  the  best  of  my  judgment,  I  followed  truth 
whithersoever  it  led  me,  and  by  whomsoever  it  was 
suggested.  Still,  I  should  be  the  last  to  deny — why 
should  I  not  be  always  proud  to  acknowledge  ? — the 
many  difficulties  that  I  had  unravelled  for  me  in  my 
searchings  after  truth  continually  by  yourself,  by  the 
inimitable  lucidity  and  high-souled  earnestness  of  your 


discourses  as  a  preacher  :  and  by  the  noble  example  of 
devotion  and  self-sacrifice  which  you  exhibited  as  a  ser- 
vant  of  Christ,  in  acting  to  the  uttermost  up  to  what 
you  believed  to  be  true.  The  result  of  it  all  was  that 
ultimately  my  convictions  led  me  to  follow  in  your  wake; 
though  there  are  still  others,  whose  profound  learning, 
and  honesty,  and  piety,  I  have  never  for  one  moment 
ceased  to  respect  equally  with  your  own,  as  deliberately 
convinced  as  ever  of  the  righteousness  of  the  position 
abandoned  by  us  as  untenable  so  many  years  ago.  1 
was  far  from  undervaluing  their  testimony,  even  when 
I  subscribed  to  your  own  in  preference  :  and  once  re- 
moved to  our  new  abode,  I  must  confess  my  course  to 
have  been  deliberately  the  exact  opposite  to  what  I  be- 
lieve yours  to  have  been  ever  since.  You,  and  very 
many  more  probably,  seemed  to  have  joined  the  Roman 
Communion  not  only  pledged  never  to  find  fault  with 
it,  but  to  see  with  its  eyes,  hear  with  its  ears,  under- 
stand with  its  understanding,  stand  or  fall  by  its  judg- 
ment. Your  argument,  I  presume,  would  be  that  the 
Church  of  Rome  claims  to  be  infalHble :  that  you  sub- 
mitted yourselves  to  it  as  such,  in  the  fullest  confidence 
that  its  decisions  can  never  mislead  you :  that  they  are 
God's  voice  speaking  to  you,  which  you  are  bound  at 
the  peril  of  your  salvation  never  to  mistrust,  much  less 
dispute.  I  joined  the  Roman  Communion  on  other 
grounds,  and  was  accepted.  Practically,  no  doubt,  the 
Church  of  Rome  claims  to  be  infallible,  and  anybody 
who  concedes,  is  dearer  to  her  than  anybody  who  dis- 
putes, her  claim  :  but  I  was  never  required  to  profess 
this  on  entering  her  Communion,  and  perhaps  might 
never  have  entered  it,  if  I  had  been.  *'  Sanctam  cath- 
olicam  et  apostolicam  Romanam  Ecclesiam,  omnium  ec- 


clesiarum  raatrem  et  magistram,  agnosco,"  a  mediaeval 
phrase,  of  which  I  knew  the  full  historical  value,  was 
the  uttermost  to  which  I  gave  my  adhesion.  And  I 
said  to  myself  on  that  occasion,  if  she  is  really  infallible, 
she  can  stand  much  more  searching  criticism  than  the 
one  which  I  am  leaving  for  her  sake,  on  behalf  of  which 
no  such  claim  has  ever  been  made.  For  I  considered 
that  after  the  extreme  rigour  with  which  the  claims  of 
the  Church  of  England  had  been  examined  by  us  all,  it 
would  be  the  height  of  disingenuousness  in  us  to  shut 
our  eyes  to  any  weak  points  of  the  system  that  we  were 
embracing  in  preference,  should  any  such  exist.  I  felt 
that  if  I  found  the  claims  of  the  Church  of  Rome  to  be 
thoroughly  in  accordance  with  facts,  I  should  ever  after- 
wards regard  her  with  tenfold  reverence  from  having 
verified  them  myself.  If  they  were  true,  analysis,  im- 
partially conducted,  could  only  confirm  them:  if  they 
were  false  to  any  extent,  or  exaggerated,  I  conceived 
we  should  be  bound  in  common  honesty  to  tell  our 
friends  that  we  were  to  that  extent,  in  reality,  no  better 
ofi"  than  we  had  been  where  we  were  before.  But  till 
I  had  actually  been  received  into  communion  with 
Rome,  it  was  my  own  impression,  and  I  was  assured  by 
members  of  the  Roman  Communion  over  and  over 
again,  that  I  could  never  judge  of  her  system  at  all  fair- 
ly or  adequately :  and  this  was  one  of  my  chief  reasons 
for  embracing  it  when  I  did.  Afterwards  I  resided  in 
various  countries  where  it  was  dominant,  and  studied  its 
worship  in  town  and  country,  comparing  them  with 
what  I  had  abandoned  for  it  at  home.  Then  I  returned 
and  set  myself  to  work  to  improve  my  previous  knowl- 
edge of  its  history  in  past  ages,  and  its  relations  with 
other  Churches  :  paying  especial  attention  to  the  causes 


"which  had  produced  estrangement  between  it  and  them 
for  a  time,  or  till  now.  All  this  has  been  my  constant 
employment  for  the  last  dozen  years  or  more :  so  that 
I  cannot  be  said  to  have  drawn  my  conclusions  hastily. 
Now  this  occupation,  and  the  temper  of  mind  which  is 
the  fruit  of  it,  whether  you  approve  of  it  or  not  in  those 
who  have  become  members  of  the  Church  of  Rome,  you 
certainly  seem  to  wish  to  encourage  in  those  who  are 
still  members  of  the  Church  of  England.  You  criticise 
their  system,  and  invite  their  criticising  it  under  your 
guidance.  You  appeal  to  them  as  men  of  fairness  and 
honesty  to  listen  to  you,  and  to  take  to  heart  what  you 
say.  Should  they  find  it  to  be  true,  then  your  advice 
to  them  is  to  abandon  a  Communion  against  which  so 
many  objections  exist  which  they  cannot  answer,  for 
another  whicli  you  represent  to  them  is  infallible — I  re- 
fer more  particularly  to  your  well-known,  and  most  per- 
sons will  admit,  appositely-timed,  letters  on  the  Crown 
in  Council — "  The  Crown  in  Council  on  the  Essays  and 
Reviews:"  and  "The  Convocation  and  the  Crown  in 
Council."  Whether  you  ever  received  any  reply  from 
the  "Anglican  friend  "  to  whom  they  were  addressed,  I 
am  unable  to  say  :  but  1  presume  that  when  you  wrote 
you  must  have  contemplated  the  possibility  of  his  rejoin- 
ing, and  that  you  were  prepared  to  attend  to  any  coun- 
ter statement  coming  from  him  in  the  same  spirit  of 
candour  and  impartiality  in  which  he  had  been  invited 
to  listen  to  you :  that  in  the  event  of  his  succeeding  to 
retort  the  difficulty  with  which  you  had  pressed  him, 
you  would  not  have  been  above  looking  it  full  in  the 
face,  and  endeavouring  to  explain  it  to  his  satisfaction : 
or  else,  if  you  felt  obliged  to  admit  that  it  could  not  be 
explained  satisfactorily,  you  would  never  have   conde- 


scended  to  have  recourse  to  any  subterfuge  that  you 
would  have  condemned  in  him,  but  would  have  confessed 
yourself  answered.  Allow  me,  therefore,  for  the  time 
being,  to  personate  your  Anglican  friend :  conceive  that 
it  is  he  who  speaks :  imagine  him  accredited  to  speak  in 
the  name  of  all  those  whom  you  have  addressed  through 
him,  as  well  as  his  own,  and  to  rejoin  as  follows  : — 

**  I  might  admit  every  word  that  has  fallen  from  you 
on  the  power  exercised  amongst  us  of  the  Church  of 
England  by  the  Crown  in  Council,  without  being  the 
least  obliged  to  follow  you  to  your  deductions  from  it, 
for  this  simple  reason,  that  *  two  blacks  don't  make  a 
white/  There  has  been,  and  is,  too  much  of  the 
'  Crown  in  Council '  by  half,  if  all  that  I  hear  is  true, 
in  your  Communion  as  well  as  our  own.  In  my  hum- 
ble opinion,  we  may  fairly  claim  to  have  learnt  our  les- 
son from  you,  to  have  copied  the  example  which  you  set 
us  in  our  infancy,  and  to  have  faithfully  followed  out 
your  own  principles,  according  to  the  circumstances  in 
which  we  were  placed.  I  will  not  inquire  whether,  in 
virtue  of  the  well-known  Sicilian  monarchy,  the  de- 
scendants of  King  Roger  have  not,  or  at  least  might  not' 
have,  exercised  the  same  authority  *  in  all  causes,  and 
over  all  persons,  ecclesiastical  as  well  as  civil,'  by  favour 
of  the  Pope,  that  the  descendants  of  Henry  VIII.  have 
ever  succeeded  in  exercising,  in  spite  of  the  Pope  :  but 
answer  me  this  one  question  honestly.  The  creed  which 
you  and  the  Archbishop  of  Canterbury  recite  still  in 
common  at  each  celebration  of  the  Lord's  Supper,  is  it 
the  Church's  Creed  or  the  Crown's  Creed  ?  I  will  tell 
you  the  grounds  which  have  convinced  me  irrevocably 
that  it  is  the  latter.  I  have  read  somewhere,  and  seen 
the  original  authorities  cited  at  length  in  proof  of  it, 
that  this  is  its  history. 


8 

"  There  were  two  forms  of  this  Creed  rehearsed  and 
authoritatively  promulgated  by  the  Fourth  (Ecumenical 
Council :  the  Nicene,  and  the  Constantinopolitan.     In 
neither  of  them,  in   the   articles   relating  to   the   Holy 
Ghost  and  His  procession,  are  those  words  found,  ^  and 
from  the  Son.'     The  Council  went  on  to  say  in  its  for- 
mal definition  that  this  Creed,  as  it   had  just  been  re- 
hearsed,   'explicitly  taught  (^xd^ddaxei.)^    the   perfect 
doctrine  (t6  Teleiov),  concerning  the  Father,  Son,  and 
Holy  Ghost.'     Besides  asserting  this  dogmatically,*  the 
holy  and  CEcumenical  Council,' — I  am  quoting  the  exact 
words  in  each  case — *  decreed   that  it   was   lawful  for 
nobody  to  propose,  that  is,  compile,  put  together,  hold, 
or  teach  others,  another  faith.     Those  who  dared  either 
to  put  together   another   faith,  or  produce,    teach,  or 
deliver  another  symbol  to  any   desirous   of  returning  to 
a  knowledge    of  the   truth   from   Hellenism,  Judaism, 
or  any  heresy  whatsoever,  were,  if  bishops  or  clergy,  to 
be  deposed :  if  laymen,  to  be  anathematised,"  all  which 
was  recited  word  for  word,  and  reaffirmed   with  equal 
solemnity, — creed,  canon,  and  definition  alike, — by   the 
^Fifth  and  Sixth  Councils  in  succession.  And  could  their 
meaning  admit  of  any  doubt,  it  could  be  shewn  by  ref- 
erence to  every  contemporary  writer  or  writing  that  deals 
with   it,   to  amount  to   this  ;  that  not  a  word  was  ever 
to  be  taken  from   or   added   to   this  creed  as  it  then 
stood  and,  with   the  single  deviation  above  mentioned, 
stands  now.     Most  explicit   on  this  head  was  the  oath 
taken  by  the  Popes  themselves.     According  to  the  ear- 
liest form  preserved*  in  their  ^  Liber  JDiuruns,' sls  it  is 
called,  every   Pope  on  his  election   swore  to  preserve 


*Migne's  Patrol,  tom.  cv,  p,  40, 


unmutilated  the  Decrees  of  the  first  five  Councils,  and, 
in  a  subsequent  clause,  of  the  sixth  as  well '''' usque  ad  un- 
um  apicerrC — to  teach  all  they  taught,  and  to  condemn- 
all  they  condemned.  By  this,  he  was  pledged  d  fortiori 
to  their  Creed,  '  usque  ad  unum  apicevi'  in  the  same 
degree.  '  Siprmter  hcec' aliquid  agere  prcBsumpsero^  vel 
ut  prcRSumatur permisero^  eris  rnihi  {Deus)^  in  ilia  ter- 
rihili  die  judicii  depropitius,''  was  the  imprecation 
which  he  was  made  to  pronounce  on  his  own  head,  in 
the  event  of  his  proving  faithless  to  his  obligations.  I 
call  especial  attention  to  these  words,  because  T  find 
them  cancelled  in  the  Pontifical  oath  of  the  eleventh 
century ;  and  by  that  time,  though  the  innovation  had 
received  several  checks  in  its  progress,  I  find  all  the 
Churches  of  the  West,  with  that  of  Rome  at  their 
head,  using  the  Creed  of  which  I  have  spoken,  with 
those  words  added  to  it,  ^  and  from  the  Son.'  But  I 
look  in  vain  for  any  canon  or  definition  of  any  General 
Councils  authorizing  or  enjoining  their  insertion.  I  look 
in  vain  for  any  Papal  Encyclic,  such  as  that  which  eman- 
ated from  the  reigning  Pope  when  the  Immaculate  Con- 
ception of  the  Blessed  Virgin  was  made  a  dogma,  pro- 
claiming that  they  had  been,  or  explaining  why  they  had 
been,  inserted  with  his  full  sanction.  On  the  contrary,  • 
I  find  from  authentic  histor}^,  that  they  were  first  intro- 
duced into  the  Creed  by  stealth,  and  ultimately  maintain- 
ed there  by  force ;  the  power  striving  for  their  introduc- 
tion being  pre-eminently  that  of  the  "  Crown  in  Coun- 
cil," ani  the  power  resisting  it  that  of  the  majority  by 
far  of  the  contemporary  Church,  backed  by  the  Pope, 
to  say  nothing  of  all  the  previous  (Ecumenical  Councils 
to  which  they  appealed.  You  will  correct  me,  if  1  am 
guilty   of  any   historical  mis-statement.     I  find,  then. 


10 

that  its  original  introduction  was  due  to  a  king,  named 
Reccared,  of  a  barbarous,  and,  till  then,  heretical  race 
in  Spain,  who,  a.d  589,  in  the  act  of  abjuring  Arian- 
ism,  promulgated  the  Creed  in  question  ignorantly 
or  wilfully,  with  this  addition,  at  the  head  of  the  Bish- 
ops of  his  dominions,  many  of  them  neophytes  from 
Arianism  like  himself.  No  Pope  could  have  taken 
the  lead  more  in  the  doctrinal  as  well  as  the  disciplina- 
ry enactments  of  this  Council,  the  third  of  Toledo,  than 
the  king  did  then.  Nobody  conversant  with  its  acts 
can  deny  this.  Such  was  what  may  therefore  be  call- 
ed the  lay -baptism  of  the  new  clause.  So  obscure  was  its 
origin,  that  it  was  not  so  much  as  noticed  at  the  sixth 
Council,  where  the  Creed  was  once  more  promulgated 
in  the  exact  form  settled  by  the  fourth  Council,  as  if 
nothing  had  happened.  But  in  the  eighth  century, 
just  before  the  seventh  Council  met,  the  Emperor  Char- 
lemagne— I  say  emperor  by  anticipation — happened  to 
be  on  extremely  bad  terms  with  the  Imperial  Court  of 
the  East.  More  than  this,  the  brother  of  the  new  Pa- 
triarch of  Constantinople,  S.  Tarasius,  who  took  the 
lead  at  the  Seventh  Council,  was  a  prisoner  of  war  in 
his  hands,  having  been  captured  in  a  hostile  encounter 
with  his  forces  in  Italy.  The  Council,  however,  met 
A.  D.  787,  legislated,  and  was  confirmed  by  the  Pope,  who 
forwarded  its  decrees,  as  well  as  his  own  approval  of 
them,  to  Charlemagne.  Charlemagne  fired  with  ran- 
cour against  the  East,  immediately  set  about  composing 
a  work  to  refute  them  ;  and  when  it  was  ready  for  pub- 
lication, summoned  a  Council  at  Frankfort  of  all  the 
Bishops  of  his  dominions,  at  which  the  decrees  of  the 
seventh  Council  were  formally  repudiated,  and  his  own 
work,  which  he,  with  the  assistance  of  his  theologians, 


11 

had  written  against  them,  approved.  This  work  he 
forwarded  to  the  Pope,  who  had  confirmed  them.  One 
of  his  principal  charges  against  them  was,  that  the  Coun- 
cil enacting  them  had  been  silent  or  ambiguous  on  a 
point  which  he  deemed  it  his  duty  to  prove  to  the  Pope 
at  great  length,  namely  the  Procession  of  the  Holy 
Ghost  from  the  Son  :  in  other  words,  that  while  it  had 
received  a  profession  of  faith  from  the  new  Patriarch,  in 
which  procession  through  the  Son  was  affirmed,  it  had 
said  nothing  at  all  on  that  subject  in  its  own  Creed, 
with  which  he  was  therefore  dissatisfied,  as  wanting  the 
addition  which  had  been  made  to  it  in  Spain  by  King 
Reccared. 

"  What  defence  the  Pope  made  for  S.  Tarasius  we 
need  not  pause  to  inquire  :  but  this  is  what  he  says  in 
reply  to  the  objection  urged  by  the  monarch  against 
the  Creed. 

"  We  have  already  proved  the  divine  dogmas 
of  this  Council  irreprehensible,  as  the  works  of  the 
principal  of  the  Holy  Fathers  abundantly  testify.  For 
should  any  body  say  that  he  differs  from  the  Creed  of 
the  above-named  Council,  he  risks  differing  (or  seems  to 
differ),  with  the  Creed  of  the  six  holy  Councils:  inas- 
much as  these  Fathers  spake  not  of  themselves,  but 
according  to  what  had  been  holily  defined  and  laid 
down  before :  as  it  is  written  in  the  book  of  the  sixth 
holy  Council,  Amongst  other  things,  'This  Creed  had 
been  sufficient  for  the  perfect  knowledge  and  confir- 
mation of  religion  ...  for  concerning  the  Father,  Son, 
and  Holy  Ghost,  what  it  explicitly  teaches  is  perfect.' 

•*  I  ask  you,  my  Lord,  as  a  plain-spoken  Englishman, 
whether  it  would  be  possible  to  conceive  the  Creed  of 
the  Church  more  deliberately  impugned  by  the  Crown 


12 

in  Council  in  the  teeth  of  the  Pope  ?  I  am  persuad- 
ed at  all  events  that  there  has  been  nothing  approach- 
ing it  in  the  history  of  the  Church  of  England  since  the 
Reformation.  Charlemagne,  as  the  mouth-piece  of  the 
Council  of  Frankfort,  composed  of  his  own  subjects  or 
allies,  took  formal  objection  to  the  Creed  of  the  Church, 
as  it  then  stood,  and  had  just  been  promulgated  for  the 
fourth  time  by  a  General  Council  confirmed  by  the 
Pope,  because  in  the  article  defining  the  procession  of 
the  Holy  Ghost  it  wanted  those  words  *  and  from  the 
Son  :'  and  the  formal  answer  of  the  Pope  thus  appealed 
to,  was,  that  its  explicit  teaching  was  perfect,  though  it 
wanted  those  words. 

"  Yet  the  '  Crown  in  Council'  we  must  conclude,  was 
more  intimately  versed  in  theology  than  either  the 
Church  in  Council  or  the  Pope,  for  it  carried  its  point 
after  all — either  this,  or  the  Church  of  Rome  in  adopt- 
ing those  words  submitted  to  its  dictation  :  for  there  is 
no  other  alternative.  Still,  for  some  time  matters  re- 
mained as  they  were :  Charlemagne  seems  to  have  ta- 
ken no  further  action  in  public  for  the  moment,  though 
he  went  on  using  the  addition  of  King  Reccared  in 
singing  the  Creed  in  his  own  chapel.  Whether  it  was 
at  his  instigation  or  not  that  some  monks  of  his  empire, 
carried  it  afterwards  to  .Jerusalem,  and  deliberately 
made  a  parade  of  it  in  one  of  the  Eastern  Patriarchates, 
where  they  had  obtained  a  footing,  is  perhaps  uncer- 
tain, though  far  from  improbable.  Two  things  are  cer- 
tain: 1,  that  the  Easterns  at  once  detected  and  unani- 
mously condenaned  the  innovation ;  and  2,  that  the 
monks  excused  themselves,  as  far  as  the  Creed  was 
concerned,  by  pleading  that  it  was  so  sung  in  the 
Imperial  chapel.     This  had  the  efiect   of  reviving   the 


13 

discussion,  which  the  Emperor,  if  he  had  not  contrived 
himself,  lost  no  time  in  coming  forward  to  settle  in  his 
own  way.  At  the  head  of  his  bishops  once  more,  he 
expounded  what  he  considered  to  be  the  orthodox  doc- 
trine on  the  subject  in  question  to  the  Pope,  and  this 
time  it  was  a  Pope  greatly  beholden  to  him — Leo  III. — 
and  ended  by  requesting  to  have  his  adopted  version  of 
the  Creed  authorized.  This  time  the  Pope  admitted 
his  doctrine  to  be  correct,  but  would  have  nothing  at 
all  added  to  the  Creed.  *  As  I  understand,  then,'  re- 
joined one  of  the  Imperial  deputies  *  your  Paternity 
orders  that  the  clause  in  question  be  first  ejected  from 
the  Creed,  and  then  afterwards  lawfully  taught  and 
learnt  by  anybody,  whether  by  singing,  or  by  oral  tra- 
dition.' *  Doubtless  that  is  my  desire,*  returned  Leo: 
*andIwould  persuade  you  by  all  means  so  to  act.' 
That  the  Pope  had  great  misgivings  as  to  whether  his 
instructions  would  be  obeyed,  is  evidenced  by  his  hav- 
ing the  Creed  subsequently  engraved  in  Greek  and 
Laiiln^without  those  words,  'and  from  the  Son,'  on  two 
silver  shields,  and  hung  up  in  the  most  conspicuous 
place  of  his  church,  ''pro  cauteld  orthodoxcejidei,^  as  he 
said  himself,  and  not  merely  that  the  Creed  might  re- 
main intact.  That  his  misgivings  were  well  founded  is 
proved  from  what  ilLneas,  Bishop  of  Paris,  reported 
about  fifty  years  after :  namely,  that  the  whole  Gallican 
Church  chanted  it  every  Sunday  in  the  form  for  which 
Charlemagne  had  contended.  Previously  to  this,  its 
admirers,  in  endeavouring  to  import  it  into  Bulgaria, 
had  elicited  a  much  more  angry  protest  from  the  East 
than  when  it  was  first  tried  at  Jerusalem.  But,  mean- 
while, the  party  that  had  twice  disobeyed  Rome  in  re- 
taining it,   had  made  themselves'  so  useful  to  Rome  in 


14 

other  respects  that  they  had  disarmed  her  opposition. 
Two  centuries  more,  and  Rome  herself  conformed  to 
their  Creed,  silently  and  clandestinely :  no  decretal, 
encyclical,  or  synodical,  announcing  her  adhesion.  The 
thing  was  done  in  a  corner,  and  but  for  a  curious  litur- 
gical writer  of  the  Western  Empire,  who  went  to  see  his 
sovereign  Henry  II.  crowned  at  Rome,  a.  d.  1014,  by 
the  Pope,  nobody  could  have  guessed  when  it  occurred. 
Berno  therefore  records  what  he  witnessed  with  his 
own  eyes  and  ears :  and  being  engaged  himself  in  a 
work  on  the  Mass,  he  would  naturally  be  very  particu- 
lar in  his  inquiries  when  he  came  to  Rome,  of  all  places, 
how  things  were  done  there.  Now  his  account  is  that 
*  up  to  that  time  the  Roman,*  that  is,  the  Church  of 
Rome  generally,'  had  in  no  wise  chanted  the  Creed  af- 
ter the  Gospel :  but  that  the  lord  emperor  Henry  would 
not  desist,  till  with  approval  of  all  he  had  persuaded  the 
apostolic  lord  Benedict  to  let  it  be  chanted  at  High 
Mass.'  There  has  been  a  vast  amount  of  learning  ex- 
pended on  this  passage,  but  the  only  Creed  chanted  at 
Mass  in  the  West  then  being  the  interpolated  Creed 
adopted  by  Charlemagne,  it  stands  to  reason  that  no 
other  could  have  been  pressed  upon  the  Pope  by  the 
Emperor.  Hence,  whether  or  not  it  had  been  in  use 
there  previously,  it  was  now  for  the  first  time  ordered 
to  be  -chanted  at  High  Mass  there  after  the  Gospel,  as  it 
had  long  been  elsewhere  throughout  the  West,  in  defer- 
ence to  if  not  by  command  of  the  Emperor.  Benedict 
had  been  restored  from  exile  by  Henry  the  year  be- 
fore, and  therefore  was  pledged  on  every  account  to  con- 
sult his  wishes,  yet  it  seems  to  have  cost  him  a  struggle 
to  give  way  on  this  point. 

"  Thus  Reccared  inaugurated  the  addition  :   Charle- 


15 

magne  patronised  it :  and  Henry  11  got  it  adopted  by 
the  Popes  themselves.  When  this  had  been  done,  the 
pontifical  oath  was  changed.  Later  Popes  of  course 
shrank  from  imprecating  a  judgment  upon  themselves, 
according  to  the  terms  of  their  oath,  in  case  they  failed 
to  keep  the  decrees  of  the  General  Councils  enumera- 
ted in  it,  *  usque  ad  unum  apicem,^  when  they  felt  they 
had  notoriously  failed  to  do  so  by  the  Creed.  That 
clause  was  accordingly  struck  out.  In  the  correspond- 
ing clause  of  the  oath  that  was  afterwards  taken  by 
them — the  way  in  which  Cardinals  are  mentioned  in  it 
associates  it  with  the  well-known  decree  of  Nicholas  II., 
1059,  respecting  the  Sacred  College — they  are  made  to 
say  simply, '  May  God  be  merciful  to  me  in  that  awful 
day  if  I  do  my  diligence  to  keep  all  these  things  sworn 
to  by  me.'  Had  it  been  intended  to  intimate  that  they 
had  been  now  and  then  forced  to  do  otherwise,  it  could 
not  have  been  differently  worded. 

*'  How,  after  this,  the  Creed  used  by  us  both  in  our 
Liturgy  can  be  called  the  Church's  Creed,  and  not  the 
Crown's  Creed,  I  am  at  a  loss  to  comprehend :  how 
Rome  can,  after  this,  be  exculpated  from  the  charge  of 
having  succumbed  to  the  '  Crown  in  Council,''  infinitely 
more  than  England,  I  should  be  pleased  in  all  honesty 
to  learn  from  you.  For  this,  as  I  presume  you  would 
admit,  is  no  mere  matter  of  *  antiquarian  research'  or 
'dreary  speculation.'  The  formal  definitions  of  the 
Church  are  still  as  obligatory,  still  as  dogmatically 
correct,  as  when  first  promulgated.  And  one  of  them, 
repeated  by  a  series  of  General  Councils  in  the  same 
words,  says  that  what  the  Creed  taught  explicitly 
with  reference  to  the  Trinity  was  perfect  when  it  was 
without  those   words,  'and   from  the   Son'.    Now,    to 


16 

contend  that  there  can  be  any  further  explanation  of 
that  which  is  explicitly  perfect  already,  is  to  deprive 
words  of  their  obvious  meaning  and  to  insult  common- 
sense.  The  majority  by  far  of  the  Church  was  with 
Adrian  I.  and  Leo  III.  when  they  defended  the  unin- 
terpolated  Creed  against  Charlemagne :  the  majority 
by  far  of  the  Church  was  against  Benedict  VIII.  when 
he  yielded  to  the  threats  or  persuasion  of  Henry  II. 
The  same  majority  of  the  Church  broke  off  com- 
munion with  the  Pope  for  abandoning,  and  finally 
submitted  to  be  annihilated  and  cut  off  from  the  face 
of  the  earth  itself,'  sooner  than  abandon  the  Creed  of 
the  Church  for  that  of  the  Crown.  I  am  utterly  unable 
to  see  where  the  parallel  fails  in  principle.  Reccared, 
Charlemagne,  and  Henry  II.,  prescribed  a  Creed  for 
the  West,  at  least  as  much  as  Henry  VIII.,  Edward  VI., 
and  Elizabeth  prescribed  one  for  England.  Subse- 
quent acceptance  cannot  alter  their  origin  in  either 
case  :  and  whether  one  consisted  in  a  compound  word 
of  four  syllables,  and  the  other  in  thirty-nine  articles, 
embodying  six  hundred  propositions,  the  fruits  were 
the  same ;  a  schism  in  each  case  followed,  and  both 
schisms  are  still  in  force.  When  the  West  separated 
from  the  East,  the  East  constituted  the  majority  of  the 
Church  by  far ;  when  Englaild  separated  from  Rome, 
the  majority  of  the  West  by  far  sided  with  Rome. 
Thus  it  came  to  pass  that  Rome  was  literally  paid  back 
in  her  own  coin.  Adding  to  the  Creed  of  the  Church 
produced  one  schism :  subtracting  from  the  Creed  of 
the  Church  of  Rome  another.  The  Reformation  was  at 
once  the  avenger  and  the  logical  offspring  of  the  schism 
between  the  East  and  the  West.  The  West  became  a 
prey  to  disunion,  split  into  fragments,  and  had  its  own 


17 

Creed  questioned,  retributively  for  its  conduct  towards 
the  East,  which  it  trampled  on  for  upholding  the  Creed 
of  the  Church.  Then  if  Anglican  orders  are  denied  by 
Rome,  Western  orders  may  be  confronted  by  Creed, 
Canon,  and  Definition  of  the  fourth,  fifth,  and  sixth 
Councils:  by  their  definition  affirming  their  creed  to  be 
perfect  as  it  then  stood  :  by  their  canon  ordaining  that 
any  bishop  or  clergy  substituting  another  creed  for  it 
as  it  then  stood  should  be  deposed.  Unless  this  canon 
is  to  be  construed  in  a  non-natural  sense,  I  cannot  see 
that  there  is  much  to  choose  between  Anglican  and 
Roman  orders  :  as  to  this  day  its  operation  must  extend 
to  every  bishop  and  priest  in  the  West  using  the  Creed 
of  Reccared  and  Charlemagne  instead  of  that  of  the 
Church.  If  its  operation  has  become  obsolete,  it  is 
because  the  power  of  enforcing  it  has  passed  away  :  in 
other  words,  because  the  executive  of  the  Church  is 
defunct,  negligent,  or  unable  to  act.  Let  me  add  a  few 
words  on  the  nature  of  the  Canon.  For  some  time 
past  a  misconception  has  been  prevalent  respecting  this 
Canon  which  has  impaired  its  force.  People  have  spo- 
ken of  it  in  general  as  the  seventh  Canon  of  the  Coun- 
cil of  Ephesus,  and  therefore  regarded  it  as  any  other 
Canon  of  a  General  Council;  and  with  neither  more 
nor  less  reverence.  This  account  of  it  is  far  short  of 
the  truth.  It  was  indeed  first  promulgated  at  Ephesus, 
but  it  was  not  intended  to  apply  to  any  but  the  origi- 
nal form  of  the  JNicene  Creed  then,  that  form  alone 
having  been  used  there,  as  we  learn  from  the  '  Acta/ 
And  it  came  seventh  in  order  of  the  Canons  passed 
there.  But  it  was  re-enacted  under  very  difierent  cir- 
cumstances at  the  Council  of  Chalcedon,  where  it 
appears  no  longer  among  the  canons,  but  immediately 
2 


18 

m 

follows  the  definition.  The  Nicene  Creed  in  its  origi- 
nal form,  and  the  same  Creed  in  the  enlarged  form 
given  to  it  by  the  Council  of  Constantinople,  having 
been  both  recited  and  authoritatively  placed  on  the 
same  footing  by  the  Council,  the  formal  definition  of 
the  Council  was  then  appended  to  them,  and  to  it  this 
Canon.  Thus  a  new  rank  was  given  to  it,  which  the 
fifth  and  sixth  Councils  alike  confirmed.  It  ceased  to 
be  a  canon  in  the  ordinary  sense  of  the  word,  and  be- 
came a  dogmatic  canon,  of  as  permanent  and  universal 
obligation  as  the  definition  itself  to  which  it  was  append- 
ed :  just,  for  instance,  as  the  judgment  appended  by 
the  Nicene  Fathers  themselves  to  their  Creed.  '  Those 
who  say  there  was  a  time  when  He  was  not,'  and  so 
forth.  As  well  might  the  Popes  have  consented  to  any 
modification  of  these  clauses  as  of  this  Canon. 

**  There  is  one  more  point  in  connection  with  it  that 
I  would  fain  submit  for  your  more  special  consideration 
before  I  conclude,  namely,  what  justification  can  you 
and  your  subordinates  plead  for  your  modern  practice, 
so  directly  opposed  to  this  Canon,  of  requiring  all  who 
come  over  to  you  from  Anglicanism  to  recite  and  testify 
their  acceptance  of  the  Creed  of  Pope  Pius,  when  this 
Canon,  as  binding  as  ever  on  the  whole  Church,  ordains 
expressly,  that  persons  coming  over  to  the  Communion 
of  the  Church,  from  any  heresy  whatsoever^  shall  have 
the  Nicene  Creed,  and  no  other,  proposed  to  them  for 
their  acceptance  ?  Every  time  you  violate  this  iujunc- 
tion,  you  incur  the  penalty  denounced  against  such  by 
the  Church  that  has  lost  her  voice.  This  is  surely 
something  like  living  in  a  glass  house  yourself,  my 
Lord — I  beg  you  will  excuse  the  metaphor — is  it  not  ?" 

Such,  then,  is  the  answer  which  I  conceive  Anglicans 


19 

might  fairly  make  to  your  letters  on  the  *'  Crown  in 
Council" — by  publishing  them  you  must  have  intended 
them  for  more  than  one — and  I  give  publicity  to  it  both 
on  their  account  in  order  that  they  may  adopt  it  if  they 
think  fit,  and  on  my  own,  to  satisfy  the  dictates  of  my 
conscience  whether  they  adopt  it  or  not.  For  I  feel  it 
imperative  to  state  publicly  to  them  and  to  you  how 
materially  fliy  inquiries  into  this  one  question  have 
modified  my  estimate  of  the  Roman  claims,  and  thougfi 
the  re-union  of  Christendom,  which  has  been  the  dream 
as  well  as  the  prayer  and  study  of  my  whole  life,  seems 
absolutely  looming  in  the  distance,  I  desire  to  record 
my  solemn  conviction,  that  it  cannot  be,  that  it  ought 
not  to  be,  till  material  guarantees  have  been  secured 
that  Rome  shall  never  again  be  what  she  has  been,  and 
to  some  extent  still  is :  so  irresistible  to  my  mind  are 
the  evidences  that  it  is  her  conduct,  more  than  anything 
else,  which  has  divided  Christendom — her  conduct  since 
she  became  a  Court  as  well  as  a  Church — not  her 
faith,  but  her  policy  for  the  last  thousand  years,  dating 
from  her  endowment  under  Charlemagne.  Eminent 
saints  and  doctors  of  the  middle  ages,  if  they  mean 
anything,  have  asserted  as  much :  I  have  nothing  to  do 
but  adopt  their  language:  their  denunciations  were 
loudest  when  they  were  by  no  means  levelled  against 
the  particular  vices  of  this  or  that  Pope.  S.  Bernard  is 
not  attacking  his  old  pupil  Eugenius,  when  he  tells  him 
in  unvarnished  language  of  the  '*  murmurs  and  com- 
plaints of  the  Churches"  of  his  day.*  *'  They  cry 
loudly  that  they  are  mutilated  and  dismembered.  .  . 
Abbots  are  exempted  from  bishops,  bishops  from  arch- 


^De  Consid.  iii.  4. 


20 

bishops,  archbishops  from  primates  or  patriarchs.  Can 
this  be  good  in  theory  ;  can  it  be  excused  in  practice  ? 
,  .  .  Can  you  possibly  think  it  lawful  for  you  to 
dismember  the  Church,  confound  order,  disturb  the 
boundaries  which  your  fathers  have  set?  If  it  be  just 
for  each  to  preserve  his  own  rights,  how  can  it  accord 
with  justice  to  take  from  a  person  what  belongs  to  him  ? 
You  err,  if  you  think  that  your  Apostolic  power,  as  it  is 
the  highest  is  the  only  power  ordained  by  God.  .  .  • 
Your  power  is  by  no  means  the  only  power  from  God : 
there  are  likewise  intermediate  and  still  lower  powers 
— and  as  they  are  not  to  be  separated  whom  God  has 
joined,  so  neither  are  they  to  be  made  one  whom  He  has 
divided ?  "  "I  remember  once,"  says  John  of  Salis- 
bury, ''  going  as  far  as  Apulia,  to  see  my  lord  Pope 
Adrian" — his  countryman  and  ours  the  English  Pope — 
"  who  had  admitted  me  to  very  great  intimacy,  and  I 
passed  nearly  three  months  with  him  at  Beneventum. 
In  the  course  of  conversation,  of  which  we  had  at  least 
the  average  amount  that  friends  usually  have,  he  ask- 
ed me  frankly  and  earnestly  what  men  thought  of  him 
and  of  the  Church  of  Rome.  I  told  him  in  reply,  very 
candidly  and  explicitly,  the  evil  things  which  had  come 
to  my  ears  in  the  provinces.  For,  as  was  said  by  many, 
the  Roman  Church,  which  is  the  mother  of  all  Churches, 
exhibits  herself  to  the  rest  rather  in  the  light  of  a  step- 
mother, than  of  a  mother As  for  the  Ro- 
man Pontiff,  he  is  a  universal  oppressor,  and  well-nigh 

past  endurance That  is  what  is  said  by  the 

people,  most  holy  Father,  since  you  ask  me  to  tell  you 
what  people  say."  f 

t  De  Nugis.  vi.  23. 


21 

'^0  Pope,"  exclaimed  the  great  prophetess  of  the 
north  by  revelation,  after  three  more  centuries  had 
passed,  '*  thou  art  worse  than  Lucifer,  more  unjust  than 
Pilate,  more  of  a  foe  to  me  than  Judas,  more  of  an 
abomination  to  me  than  the  Jews  themselves."  t  Not 
that  she  was  speaking  of  the  vices  of  any  one  Pope  in 
particular,  but  of  the  Papacy,  such  as  it  was  then.  I 
could  fill  pages  from  medieval  writers  of  approved  name 
to  the  same  effect.  What  they  meant  and  what  with  his- 
tory before  us  we  cannot  venture  to  contend  they  de- 
nounced extravagantly,  were  the  principles  and  pi-actices 
of  a  system  known  and  stigmatised  as  the  Court  of  Rome, 
for  this  was  its  head-quarters,  which  had  clearly  been 
inaugurated  under  Charlemagne  and  his  successors,  par- 
ties to  the  ''donation"  and  had  usurped  precedence  of 
the  self-denying  mould  and  pastoral  gifts  inherited  from 
S.  Peter.  Their  sway  was  no  sooner  established,  than 
bad  Popes  found  themselves  omnipotent  to  do  mischief^ 
and  the  best  Popes  comparatively  powerless  to  do  good. 
Eugenius  III.  had  not  commenced,  and  he  was  impo- 
tent to  resist,  the  changes  in  the  constitution  of  the 
Church  so  bitterly  denounced  and  deplored  by  S.  Ber- 
nard. 

All  this  I  knew,  and  had  well  considered  long  before 
I  joined  the  Roman  Communion,  as  my  books  testify. 
I  thought  then,  and  am  doubly  convinced  now,  after 
reading  ecclesiastical  history  through  again  as  a  Roman 
Catholic,  that  if  there  ever  was  a  justifiable  revolt  from 
authority,  it  was  the  revolt  we  call  the  Reformation  :  and 
most  certainly  had  it  been  a  revolt  from  a  mere  secular 

}  Mansi,  tom.  xxx.  pp.  715 — 18,  with  Cardinal  Turrecre- 
mata's  comments. 


22 

power,  like  that  of  the  United  States  of  America  from 
England,  I  for  one  should  never  have  dreamt  of  trans- 
ferring my  allegiance  from  the  Anglican  to  the  Roman 
Communion,  any  more  than  I  suppose  any  citizen  of 
the  United  States  in  his  sober  senses  would  now  dream 
of  transferring  his  own  principle  to  the  British  Crown. 
But  all  scripture  told  me  that  there  should  be  but  one 
Church :  and  all  history  told  me  that  a  Primacy  from 
time  immemorial  in  that  one  Church  belonged  to  the 
see  of  Rome :  all  history  told  me,  moreover,  that  from  the 
foundation  of  the  see  of  Canterbury  to  the  Reformation, 
the  Church  of  England  had  been  one  with  Rome,  had 
voted  freely  and  deliberately  for  the  doctrine  and  dis- 
cipline upheld  by  Rome,  including  the  supremacy  of 
the  Pope,  for  centuries ;  and  was  at  least  as  responsible 
for  the  corruptions  that  had  accumulated  in  the  middle 
ages  and  precipitated  the  catastrophe  of  the  sixteenth 
century,  as  any  other  of  the  Churches  in  communion 
with  Rome  on  the  continent.  Hence,  it  certainly 
seemed  to  me  that  the  Church  of  England  had  done 
wrong  in  separating  from  the  body  of  which  she  had  been 
so  long  a  foremost  member,  and  affecting  to  care  for  noth- 
ing so  long  as  her  own  boat  got  off  safe,  instead  of 
standing  manfully  by  her  colours,  and  assisting  by  every 
means  in  her  power  to  bring  the  old  ship  safe  into  port. 
At  all  events  what  excuse  was  there  for  our  continued 
isolation  ?  If  I  could  trust  to  the  Roman  Catholic  di- 
vines of  this  country,  whose  teaching  I  took  to  be  faith- 
fully reflected  in  a  work  entitled  the  "  Faith  of  Catho- 
lics," reprinted  in  1846,  for  the  third  time,  by  a  living 
dignitary,  since  promoted,  and  dedicated  to  the  late 
Bishop  Walsh,  I  felt  there  was  nothing  in  the  Roman 
Catholic  system  now,  to  which  I  could  not  honestly,  and 


23 

'would  not  willingly  subscribe,  for  the  sake  of  breaking 
down  the  barriers  that  estranged  us  from  the  Churches 
abroad,  with  which  our  forefathers  had  lived  and  died 
in  happy  communion.  It  may  be  that  I  trusted  those 
divines  too  implicitly :  it  is  not  long  since  I  heard  the 
term  "  ministers*'  applied  from  the  pulpit  by  a  living 
preacher,  who  may  be  supposed  your  mouth-piece,  to 
those  who  believed  no  more  :  though  it  would  be  dif- 
ficult to  produce  any  Roman  Catholic  catechism  in  use 
throughout  England  in  which  more  was  taught.  But 
this  by  the  way.  More  intimate  acquaintance  with  the 
Continental  Churches,  and  a  much  more  searching 
investigation  into  the  merits  of  the  schism  between  the 
East  and  West  than  I  had  ever  been  able  to  give  to  it 
before,  has  modified  my  views  on  the  whole  question 
considerably  between  England  and  Rome.  Let  me  be- 
gin with  the  last  first. 

To  the  facts,  which  some  pages  back  I  put  into  the 
mouth  of  your  Anglican  friend,  you  will  doubtless  re- 
member my  calling  your  attention  privately  just 
twelve  months  ago.  Your  only  reply  to  me,  so  far  as 
they  were  concerned,  was  that  they  were  already  known. 
This  I  construed  as  an  admission  on  your  part  that 
I  had  stated  them  correctly.  But  if  so,  what  other  in- 
ference can  be  deduced  from  them,  than  that  for  the 
last  1,000  years  the  Roman  Communion  has  been  com- 
mitted to  the  use  of  a  Creed  which  is  not  that  of  the 
Church,  but  of  the  Crown  ?  I  do  not  say  therefore  to 
the  use  of  a  Creed  which  is  heterodox.  On  the  the- 
ological question  involved  in  it  I  would  wish  to  speak 
with  becoming  reverence :  but  thus  much  is  certain, 
that  the  addition  which  forms  its  distinguishing  feature 
was  made  and  had  been  in   use  many  centuries  before 


24 

any  Pope  judged  it  allowable,  much  less  necessary: 
many  centuries  before  theologians  in  the  West  had 
agreed  amongst  themselves  whether  the  terms  "mission" 
and  "  procession '*  were  distinguishable.  Doubtless  it 
has  since  found  able  defenders  :  but  among  them  there 
are  scarce  two  who  give  the  same  account  of  it,  historical- 
ly or  doc  trin  ally :  and  some  of  them  are  neither  con  sis. 
tent  with  each  other  nor  with  themselves.  Others,  in 
arguing  for  it  against  the  Easterns,  have  grievously 
mis-stated  facts,  and  numberless  passages  have  been 
adduced  in  support  of  it  from  the  Fathers,  either  wholly 
spurious  or  interpolated.  I  know  of  no  parallel  to  it  in 
this  respect  in  any  religious  controversy,  before  or  since. 
If  the  Athanasian  Creed  was  not  expressly  coined  for 
this  controversy,  it  was  employed  in  this  controversy 
first  as  a  polemical  weapon.  At  Florence,  where  the 
whole  question  of  the  Creed  was  gone  into  formally  for 
the  first  time,  the  number  of  spurious  passages  adduced 
on  the  Latin  side  stands  out  in  painful  contrast  to  what 
was  produced  on  the  Greek  side,  in  which  even  modern 
criticism  has  not  been  able  to  discover  a  single  flaw.  In 
the  Florentine  definition  itself  there  is  one  clause  which 
runs  as  follows:  "We  define  that  those  explanatory 
words,  *and  from  the  Son,'  were  to  the  end  that  the 
truth  might  be  elucidated,  under  the  necessity  which 
existed  then,  lawfully  and  with  good  reason  added  to 
the  Creed."  The  history  of  this  clause  is  that  it  was 
urgently  required  by  the  Pope,  who  was  present,  and 
presided  in  person,  as  urgently  resisted  by  the  Easterns, 
and  only  conceded  on  the  express  understanding  that  it 
was  not  to  prejudice  their  own  use  of  the  Creed  in  any 
way.  What  it  means  has  yet  to  be  shewn.  Admit  it 
historically,  and  it  binds  us  to  aflirm  that   those  words 


25 

were  '^lawfully  and  with  good  reason  added  to  the 
Creed  "  two  centuries  before  Rome  was  so  much  as 
consulted  on  them  :  four  centuries  before  she  received 
them  herself.  Admit  it  dogmatically,  and  what  follows  ? 
I  take  my  stand  on  the  definition  of  the  fourth,  fifth, 
and  sixth  Councils,  and  affirm  the  explicit  teaching  of 
the  Creed  on  the  Trinity  perfect,  as  it  stood  then : 
namely,  without  those  words,  "and  from  the  Son." 
This  makes  me  deny  by  implication  all  that  this 
clause  asserts :  for  how,  I  repeat,  can  explicit  teaching 
which  is  perfect,  admit  of  any  further  explanation  ?  I 
must  assert  the  contrary  to  this,  or  get  over  its  obvious 
and  genuine  meaning  in  some  shifty  way,  to  be  able  to 
attach  any  dogmatical  value  to  the  Florentine  clause  ; 
or  else  I  must  fall  back  upon  the  history  of  the  Floren- 
tine clause  once  more.  S.  Antoninus,  afterwards 
Archbishop  of  Florence,  who  was  present  at  the  Coun- 
cil, and  a  great  canonist,  says  of  those  words,  "and 
from  the  Son,"  emphatically  :  "It  is  certain,  nor  is  it  to 
be  believed  that  they  were  added  unless  by  some  Pope 
or  Council,  for  who  else  would  have  presumed  to  have 
added  them  ?  albeit  by  what  Pope  or  Council  is  by  no 
means  certain."*  It  seems  hardly  possible  to  doubt 
that  the  Florentine  clause  was  framed  on  this  hypoth- 
esis, and  must  be  regarded  accordingly,  now  that  the 
facts  are  known.  S.  Antoninus,  we  may  be  sure,  nev- 
er contemplated  our  believing  what  we  know  to  be 
not  fact.  The  remainder  of  the  definition,  good  and 
excellent  as  it  is,  in  reality  left  the  main  point  untouch- 
ed. That  is  to  say,  it  explained  and  harmonised  the 
arguments  by  which  the  Greeks  and  Latins  had   defen- 


*Chron.  P.  in.  tit  iii.  c.  13,  §  13. 


26 

ded  their  respective  views  since  the  schism,  accommoda- 
ted their  views  to  each  other,  and  ruled  what  should 
be  taught  in  future  by  both  :  but  it  had  not  a  word  to 
say  on  what  had  been  the  doctrine  of  the  Whole 
Church  before  the  schism  commenced :  when  Council 
after  Council  had  declared  the  explicit  teaching  of  the 
Creed  on  the  Trinity  to  be  perfect,  as  it  stood  then. 
To  this,  Mark  of  Ephesus  had  called  the  attention  of 
the  Council  in  the  most  formal  manner,  by  reciting 
their  acts :  but  here  precisely  the  definition  stopped 
short,  as  if  by  instinct  or  from  design,  and  said  nothing. 
So  far  from  determining  the  relation  which  the  two 
forms  of  the  Creed,  the  old  and  the  interpolated,  bore 
to  each  other — to  the  amazement,  as  we  are  told,  of 
the  ambassadors  from  England  who  came  to  the  Coun- 
cil— it  neither  recited  nor  alluded  to  any  Creed  at  all, 
much  less  promulgated  either  form  as  the  Creed  of  the 
Church.  It  abstained  from  affirming  them  identical  : 
it  abstained  from  pointing  out  how  they  differed  :  it 
gave  no  directions  of  any  kind  about  their  use.  If  the 
use  of  the  old  Creed  was  not  interdicted  for  the  future, 
neither  was  the  use  of  the  interpolated  Creed  enjoined. 
In  conclusion,  as  if  to  stamp  the  whole  business — as  if 
to  typify  the  union  between  the  Creed  of  the  Crown 
and  the  Creed  of  the  Church  that  had  taken  place- 
both  Emperor  and  Pope  subscribed  to  the  definition  of 
faith  side  by  side,  a  prodioy  without  parallel  in  the  an- 
nals of  (Ecumenical  Councils,  before  or  since. 

Therefore,  my  Lord,  with  the  facts  of  this  controver- 
sy before  me,  I  find  this  conclusion  inevitable  :  that 
whether  absolutely  inerrant  or  not  in  matters  of  faith 
herself,  Rome  has  abundantly  proved,  during  the  last 
1,000  years,  that  she  can  be  a  most  negligent,  hesita- 


27 

ting,  fickle,^  self-seeking,  hypocritical  guide  to  others, 
even  where  the  Faith  is  concerned.  Such,  at  all  events 
has  been  her  conduct  by  the  Church's  Creed;  each 
epithet  describes  it  at  each  stage  :  the  last,  the  worst. 
Sad  presage  for  the  re-union  of  Christendom,  in  a  Gen- 
eral Council  presided  over  by  the  Pope,  that  the  only 
General  Council  [of  the  East  and  West]  over  which  a 
Pope  ever  presided  in  person  should  have  been  the 
only  Council  ever  convened  exclusively  for  restoring 
union  to  the  Church — I  am  using  a  phrase  of  the  Pope 
who  held  it — and  this  the  Council  of  Florence  under 
Eugenius  IV. !  Of  all  Councils  that  ever  were  held,  I 
suppose  there  never  was  one  in  which  hypocrisy,  duplic- 
ity, and  worldly  motives,  played  a  more  conspicuous 
or  disgraceful  part.  How  the  Council  ot  Basle  was  out- 
witted, and  Florence  named  as  the  place  to  which  the 
Greeks  should  come  :  how  the  galleys  of  the 
Pope  outstripped  the  galleys  of  the  Council,  and  bore 
the  Greeks  in  triumph  from  Constantinople  to  a  town 
in  the  centre  of  Italy,  where  the  Pope  was  all-power- 
ful :  how  they  were  treated  there  :  and  why  they 
were  subsequently  removed  to  Florence,  would  reveal 
a  series  of  intrigues  of  the  lowest  order,  if  I  had  space 
to  transcribe  them  ;  unfortunately,  they  were  too  pat- 
ent at  every  stage  of  the  Council  for  the  real  objects  of 
its  promoters  to  admit  of  the  slightest  doubt.  Between 
John  Palaeologus  and  Eugenius  it  was  a  barter  of  tem- 
poral and  spiritual  gains  from  first  to  last.  One  had  his 
capital  to  guarantee  from  attack  :  the  other  his  position 
in  Italy  to  establish.  Each  hoped  to  be  victorious 
through  the  other,  Eugenius  over  the  Basle  fathers, 
Palaeologus  over  the  Turks.  The  more  sailors  and 
soldiers  the  Pope  promised,  the  greater  submission   the 


28 

Emperor  engciged  to  extort  from  liis  bishops  to  the 
teaching  of  the  Latin  Church.  Three  cardinals  solemn- 
ly notified  to  the  Emperor  what  succours  he  might 
expect  from  the  Pope  when  the  union  of  the  Churches 
had  been  accomplished,  just  as  he  had  succeeded  in 
getting  all  his  bishops  but  one  to  declare  for  it.  There 
would  be  ships  and  money  to  take  them  home  :  three 
hundred  soldiers  for  the  defence  of  their  capital  to  be 
maintained  there  at  the  cost  of  the  Pope.  Two  galleys 
would  remain  on  guard  there  at  his  cost  likewise. 
When  the  Emperor  had  need  of  ships  of  war,  the 
Pope  would  supply  twenty,  and  maintain  them  for 
him  at  his  own  expense  for  six  months.  And  in  case 
the  Emperor  should  need  help  by  land,  the  Pope,  ly 
Christy  would  do  his  utmost  to  get  Christian  nations  to 
send  an  army  to  his  assistance."  When  union  was 
imminent,  the  Emperor  said  :  "  The  time  draws  near : 
we  must  be  thinking  of  our  departure."  The  Pope 
replied,  *'I  have  seen  to  it  already  and  will  see  to  it.  I 
sent  a  captain  all  in  good  time  to  prepare  ships,  and 
should  anything  else  be  needed  for  your  return,  I  will 
give  orders  for  it  at  once  :  meanwhile,  take  this  paper 
from  me,  and  when  you  have  read  it,  let  me  have 
your  re-ply."  This  was  the  definition ;  not,  indeed,  in 
the  precise  shape  in  which  it  passed  :  but  ships  and 
money  were  to  be  forthcoming  when  it  was  signed. 
Such  were  the  preliminaries  to  the  joint  declaration  of 
the  two  Churches  on  the  Procession  of  the  Holy  Ghost, 
translated  literally  from  the  Acts  of  the  Council.  Shall 
I  avow  it,  my  Lord  ?  my  blood  curdles  as  I  transcribe 
them  :  but  the  worst  is  not  told. 

Eugenius,  the  only  Pope  who  ever  presided  over  [such] 
a  General  Council   in  person,  what  does  history  say  of 


I 


29 

his  general  character — of  the  holy  zeal  exhibited  by  him 
while  the  Council  for  re-uniting  Christendom  was  sit- 
ing, or  in  conciliating  adhesion  to  it  after  it  was  over  ? 
One  might  have  expected  antecedently  that  his  pres- 
ence and  example  would  have  influenced  the  Council, 
as  no  other  Council  had  ever  been  influenced  before, 
f5r  good.  "  Eugenius,''  says  his  most  partial  biographer 
— I  am  quoting  from  Ciaconius,  "  was  esteemed  con- 
stant in  adhering  to  his  engagements,  unless  he  happen- 
ed to  have  promised  anything  which  it  were  better  to  re- 
cal  than  to  perform."  He  was  exchanging  angry  cen- 
sures and  excommunications  with  the  Council  of  Basle, 
all  the  time  that  he  aflected  to  be  promoting.^union  at 
Florence  with  all  his  might.  "  Alas,"  exclaimed  the 
great  Archbishop  of  Palermo,  one  of  his  own  cardinals 
subsequently,  "  what  kind  of  union  will  this  turn  out, 
fraught  at  its  very  commencement  with  so  much  discord 
and  scandal  to  the  Latin  Church  f'  Never  were  fore- 
bodings more  fully  justified  by  the  event.  Blondus,  the 
Pope's  secretary,  is  lost  in  wonder  at  the  vast  sums  of 
money  expended  by  his  master  in  conciliating  the  high 
dignitaries  or  indigent  prelates  of  the  Greek  Emperor 
with  presents — Syropulus,  one  of  the  number,  less  scru- 
pulously calls  them  bribes — and  in  maintaining,  at  no 
less  cost,  his  own  army  simultaneously j  at  the  head  of 
which,  operating  against  Nicholas  Piccinino,  Philip  of 
Milan,  or  Francis  Sforza,  petty  chieftains  of  some  rival 
factions,  was  John  Vitellius  Vitelleschi,  cardinal  of  Flor- 
ence and  Latin  patriarch  of  Alexandria.  Such  were  the 
interests  to  which  the  Pope  found  time  to  attend,  and 
such  the  ministers  to  whom  he  consigned  their  execu- 
tion, while  the  Council  of  Florence  was  sitting.  Before 
the  Council  was  over,    Vitelleschi   was  suddenly  seized 


30 

and  put  to  death,  without  any  trial,  by  his  orders. 
"  Such  is  the  fickleness,  and  such  are  the  vicissitudes  of 
human  affairs,"  says  the  cardinal's  biographer, ''  that  he 
who  was  treated  to-day  with  scorn  and  contumely,  was 
two  days  before  ordering  about  everybody,  and  dispos- 
ing of  everything  at  pleasure,  within  the  domain  of  the 
Church ;  governing  Rome,  the  patrimony,  the  duchy, 
Campania,  the  coast,  and  whatever  else  belonged  to  the 
Church."  Let  us  see  who  succeeded  him.  Lewis,  Arch- 
bishop of  Florence — the  city  in  which  the  Council  was 
still  sitting — Patriarch  of  Aquileia,  made  cardinal^  we 
are  expressly  told,  not  for  aught  that  he  had  done  at 
the  Council,  but  for  having  defeated  in  battle  Nicholas 
Piccinino.  '  *' He," says  his  biographer,"  merited  the 
love  of  Eugenius  to  that  extent  by  his  military  prowess, 
that  he  became  first  Bishop  of  Dalmatia,  then  Archbish- 
op of  Florence,  finally  Patriarch  of  Dalmatia,  being  the 
first  Venetian  who  fiad  ever  held  that  See."  Eugenius, 
a  true-born  Venetian,  was  fond  of  his  race ;  and  when 
they  had  approved  themselves  good  soldiers — anything, 
alas !  but  the  soldiers  of  Christ — they  merited  his  ex- 
ceeding love.  The  culminating  distinction  reserved  for 
his  fellow-townsman  was  to  succeed  the  patriarch  of 
Aquileia  as  commander-in-chief  of  the  papal  army ; 
and  the  first  thought  of  the  new  patriarch  of  Aquileia 
on  entering  upon  office  was  not  to  keep  Eugenius  to  his 
engagements  to  the  Greek  Emperor  of  succouring  him 
against  the  Turks,  but  to  engage  the  Pope  in  hostilities 
against  his  own  rival  in  adventure,  Francis  Sforza,  whom 
from  that  time  forth  Eugenius,  acting  under  the  advice  of 
his  commander-in-chief,  the  archbishop,  bent  all  his  ener- 
gies to  crush,  writing  at  the  same  time  to  Constantinople 
with  the  utmost  assurance,  to  tell  Constantine  PalaBolo- 


31 

gus,  the  brother  and  heir  of  John,  that  it  was  the  su  - 
pineness  of  the  Emperor  in  carrying  out  the  terms  of 
the  union,  and  nothing  else,  that  had  delayed  his  fulfil- 
ling his  engagements  to  him.  The  Greeks  had  agreed 
to  the  Florentine  definition,  and  left  Florence  on  the  un- 
derstanding that  they  might  retain  their  own  rites  and 
their  own  Creed  :  it  was  not  till  Eugenius  thought  he 
could  tell  Europe  that  they  had  conformed  to  the  Roman 
rite — we  have  this  in  his  own  words — that  he  con- 
descended to  aid  them  as  he  had  promised  :  and  even 
then,  Hungary,,  not  Constantinople,  was  his  uppermost 
thought. 

Such,  therefore  we  learn  from  history,  was  the  conduct 
of  the  only  Pope  who  ever  sat  at  the  head  of  a  Council, 
all  through  the  time  when  he  was  sitting  and  acting  as 
such  in  the  only  Council  that  ever  met  exclusively  for 
re-uniting  Christendom.  Now,  what  guarantees  have 
we,  my  Lord,  or  can  we  have,  that  the  same  conduct 
may  not  be  displayed  again,  while  the  same  system  re- 
mains in  full  force  ?  The  personal  holiness  of  the  reign- 
ing pontiff  may  be  some  security  while  we  are  blessed 
with  it,  but  it  may  be  laid  in  the  grave  to-morrow  ;  and 
against  this,  strong  as  it  is,  there  is  the  undjing  system 
which  has  always  proved  immeasurably  stronger  than 
any  Pope,  when  its  interests  were  threatened.  Are 
there  not  papal  Zouaves  to  be  cared  for  as  well  as  bishops 
and  papal  territory  to  be  thought  of  and  battled  for,  as 
well  as  dogma  ?  And  have  we  never  read  of  Pius  IX. 
^ms^Z/'anxiously  negotiating  with  a  Protestant  premier 
for  a  supply  of  7,000  or  8,000  muskets  of  light  calibre 
for  his  civic  guard,  which  he  thought  imperative,  but 
was  unable  to  pay   for,  and  unwilling  to  procure  from 


32 

^*  Naples,  Turin,  or  Austria"  just  then  ?*  Nobody  would 
contend  that  Pius  IX.  was  indebted  to  the  system  for 
his  many  virtues:  and  history  shews  that  Eugenius 
€Ould  not  have  acted  in  most  cases  as  he  did,  had  it  not 
been  for  the  system.  Therefore,  by  all  who  are  praying 
and  hoping  for  the  re-union  of  Christendom  in  a  corporate 
sense,  Eugenius  at  the  headof  the  Council  of  Florence 
cannot  to  be  scanned  too  closely.  Look  at  his  acts  there  in 
the  practical  light  in  which  alone  the  men  of  this  age  will 
ever  be  disposed  generally  to  regard  them.  Of  what 
conceivable  advantage  can  his  presence  be  said  to  have 
been  to  the  Council  ?  Did  it  prevent  hypocris)^,  deceit, 
and  secular  intrigue  from  reigning  there  :  rather  was  it 
not  the  prime  cause  of  their  reigning  there,  to  the  con- 
fusion of  all  the  good  and  learned  men  on  both  sides  ? 
They  prayed  and  argued  to  little  purpose  under  such  a 
head.  Can  his  presence  have  been  as  much  as  a  nega- 
tive safeguard  against  error  ?  This  is  probably  the  ut- 
most that  can  be  conceded :  and  even  this  admits  of 
some  question,  at  least  as  long  as  the  proposition  insert- 
ed in  the  definitioh  at  his  instance  remains  unreconciled 
with  history,  or  with  previous  dogma.  Meanwhile,  the 
main  point  in  the  controversy  was  never  explained  at 
all :  though  it  had  been  waiting  seven  hundred  years 
for  a  settlement.  Policy,  that  was  as  old  as  the  contro- 
versy, forbade  this. 

I  pass  from  questions  of  Faith  to  questions  of  Morals, 
— for  on  both  Rome  claims  to  be  infallible, — and  once 
more  I  limit  my  criticisms  to  the  Rome  of  the  last  1000 
years,  and  to  her  trustworthiness  as  a  practical  guide. 
How  has  duty  to  man — the  suum  cuique  of  political  jus- 


*Guizot's  Last  Days  of  Louis  Philippe,  p.  321. 


33 

tice — fared  at  her  hands  ?  What  we  have  heard  from 
S.  Bernard  already  may  help  to  determine  this.  *'  Ab- 
bots are  exempted  from  Bishops,  bishops  from  archbish- 
ops, archbishops  from  primates  or  patriarchs.  Can  this 
be  good  in  theory,  can  it  be  excused  in  practice  ?  Can 
you  possibly  think  it  lawful  for  you  to  dismember  the 
Church,  confound  order,  disturb  the  boundaries  which 
your  fathers  have  set?"  I  used  to  estimate  those  words 
very  differently  ten  or  twelve  years  ago  from  what  I  do 
now.  I  used  to  consider  S.  Bernard  and  all  other  com- 
plainants of  his  stamp  in  the  middle  ages  indirectly  re- 
sponsible for  the  evils  which  they  denounced,  as  having 
consented  in  themselves  or  in  their  forefathers  to  the  sys- 
tem out  of  which  they  flowed.  That  system  could  nev- 
er have  thriven,  or  become  possessed  of  any  coercive 
power,  without  their  aid  or  acquiescence.  The  Papacy 
could  never  be  said  to  have  made  conquest  of  mediae  vai 
Europe  by  force  of  arms.  It  took  root,  because  the  soil 
was  congenial :  its  fruits  were  tasted,  and  found  palata- 
ble When  it  had  been  proved  beneficial  to  the  body 
politic  in  general,  or  rather  incomparably  better  than 
anything  else  that  offered  to  men  then,  it  was  encourag- 
ed by  all.  It  had  its  abuses  unquestionably  :  all  honour 
to  its  supporters  for  their  candour  in  denouncing  them : 
still  jn  estimating  their  language  I  could  not  honestly 
shut  my  eyes  to  the  fact  that  they  clung  to  the  system 
under  which  they  lived,  were  parties  to  it  in  practice, 
and  never  dreamt  of  exchanging  it  for  another,  thus 
proving  that  it  existed  in  the  main,  abuses  excepted, 
with  their  full  concurrence.  I  also  remembered  that 
there  were  numbers  amongst  ourselves  who  could  be  elo- 
quent on  the  evils  of  parliamentary  government,  and 
dwell  forebodingly  on  the  omnipotence  of  the  House  of 
3 


34 

Commons,  without  at  all  meaning  to  assert  that  any  one 
of  our  constitutional  changes  had  been  brought  about  il- 
legally, without  in  any  sense  wishing  to  go  back  to  what 
we  had  been  under  the  Tudors  or  Plantagenets. 

Subsequent  investigations  have  shewn  me  the  one- 
sidedness  of  this  explanation.  It  contemplated  the  West 
either  as  the  whole  Church,  or  else  as  competent  to 
modify  the  discipline  of  the  whole  Church  at  will  to  suit 
its  own  predilections  or  well-being.  S.  Bernard,  by  his 
mention  of  patriarchs,  had  evidently  travelled  beyond 
the  limits  of  the  West  for  his  facts.  His  words  there- 
fore— '*  Can  you  possibly  think  it  lawful  for  you  to  dis- 
memher  the  ChurcTi,,  confound  order,  disturb  the  boun- 
daries which  your  fathers  had  assigned  them" — had  a 
deeper  and  a  wider  meaning  than  I  had  assigned  them 
formerly.  He  preferred  a  charge  with  which  my  ears 
had  long  been  familiar  in  another  application..  The 
West  had  a  perfect  right  to  alter  its  own  ecclesiastical 
polity,  so  far  as  the  constitutions  of  the  whole  Church 
permitted.  This  was  precisely  the  liberty  claimed  for 
themselves  by  the  champions  of  the  Church  of  England 
at  the  Reformation.  But  the  West  had  no  right  at  all, 
in  legislating  for  itself,  to  innovate  upon  the  existing 
and  unrepealed  ordinances  of,the  whole  Church.  This 
was  precisely  the  charge  brought  against  the  Church  of 
England  by  the  late  Archdeacon  Wilberforce,  and  which 
I  for  the  time  thought  unanswerable.  Therefore,  admit- 
ting the  allegations  of  S.  Bernard  to  be  true  to  the  let- 
ter, with  what  face  could  I  deny  the  Church  of  Home  to  \ 
have  been  a  much  greater  offender  than  the  Church  of  I 
England  so  far — a  much  greater  offender,  because,  [ 
claiming  to  be  the  executive  of  the  whole  Church,  she  j 
ought  to  have  been  the  first  to  enforce,  the  last  to  con- 


35 

travene  its  existing  statutes  ?  The  question  remained, 
how  she  had  carried  her  point  ?  This,  of  course,  S.  Ber- 
nard could  not  have  answered.  The  Church  of  Eng- 
land had  taken  advantage  of  the  Reformation  to  carry 
hers,  and  a  schism  between  her  and  Rome  had  been  the 
consequence.  I  now  asked  how  far  the  conduct  of 
Rome  in  this  respect  could  have  contributed  to  the  ear- 
lier schism  between  the  East  and  West,  and  I  am  bound 
to  say  that  history  replied  with  twice  the  clearness  and 
twice  the  sternness  that  it  had  previously  replied  in  the 
case  of  the  Creed.  History  deposed  in  short  unhesitat- 
ingly that  Rome  rose  to  the  eminence  whicfi  she  occu- 
pied in  the  thirteenth  century  when  at  her  zenith — and 
from  which  in  the  Providence  of  God  she  has  been  grad- 
ually, but  surely  descending  ever  since — most  unright- 
eously, as  concerns  the  Cliurcli — the  whole  Church  I 
mean — by  fraud  and  force  :  by  the  weapon  of  the  weak, 
and  the  weapon  of  the  strong,  alternately  put  into  her 
hand,  and  employed  by  her  as  legitimate,  for  the  spread 
of  her  own  power,  to  the  dismemberment  and  destruc- 
tion of  the  Church  at  large :  the  most  striking  specimens 
of  each  kind  being  the  Pseudo-decretals,  including  of 
course  the  Pseudo-donation,  and  the  Crusades.  By 
these  means,  her  bishop  aspired  to  become  Patriarch  of 
the  whole  Church  as  well  as  Pope.  I  must  find  space 
for  a  few  words  upon  each. 

1.  No  certain  proof,  to  the  best  of  my  belief,  has  been 
discovered  as  yet,  that  the  pseudo-decretals  and  pseu- 
do-donation were  manufactured  at  Rome,  or  by  order 
of  Rome  ;  for  all  that,  Rome  stands  committed  to  them 
no  less  than  if  she  had  done  both,  as  we  shall  see.  They 
purported  to  embody  the  formal  teaching  of  her  earliest 
pontiffs.     She  must  have  known  from  the  first  therefore, 


36 

or  been  able  to  ascertain,  whether  they  came  from  her 
archives  or  not :  yet  she  studiously  forebore  from  in- 
quiring, and  said  nothing.  It  was  enough  for  her  that 
their  genuineness  came  to  be  generally  believed  in,  that 
they  favoured  her  aggrandisement,  and  could  be  em- 
ployed with  decisive  effect  against  those  who  contested 
it.  She  cared  nothing  for  the  palpable  contradiction 
between  them  and  the  acknowledged  Canons  of  the 
whole  Church  which  she  was  bound  to  uphold  and  en- 
force. As  this  is  just  the  point  which  has  been  eluded 
hitherto  by  the  apologists  of  the  pseudo-decretals,  it 
will  need  unfolding  at  some  length. 

That  what  is  called  the  "  Code  of  the  Universal 
Church  "  was  in  existence  as  a  collection  at  the  time 
of  the  fourth  Council  is  established  by  Justellus  and 
others  indisputably  from  the  manner  in  which  a  hooTc 
of  Canons  was  referred  to  there  in  the  ninth  and  elev- 
enth Actions,  canons  being  in  each  case  cited  from  it  as 
the  83d  and  84th,  95th  and  96th,  according  to  the  ex- 
act numbering  which  they  bear  there  now.  For  the 
same  reason  it  can  have  been  no  other  collection  that 
was  authoritatively  confirmed  by  the  first  Canon  of  the 
same  Council  in  these  words  :  *' We  pronounce  it  to  be 
fit  and  just  that  the  canons  of  the  holy  Fathers  made  in 
every  synod  to  the  present  time  be  in  full  force."  *  To 
these  subsequently  the  Council  appended  its  own :  all 
of  which  down  to  the  28th  were  passed  unanimously : 
and  this  I  omit  on  the  ground  that  it  was  never  con- 
firmed by  Rome,  the  old  rule  being,  as  we  are  told  by 
Socrates,  Sozomen,  and  Theodoret,  all  of  them  Greeks, 
that  no  canons  could  be  passed  without  the   consent  of 

*I  adopt  Mr.  Johnson's  translation.  Vade  Mecum  vol. 
II,  p.  41,  et  seq. 


37 

the  Pope.  The  code  of  the  Universal  Church  there- 
fore down  to  this  28th  Canon  of  Chalcedon  is  unquestion- 
ably binding  on  the  whole  Church  still,  and  always  has 
been,  except  in  cases  where  it  can  be  shewn  to  have 
been  modified  by  subsequent  legislation  of  equal  author- 
ity. Now  in  this  code  there  is  no  mention  whatever 
of  the  See  of  Rome,  as  a  supreme  power,  or  even  ulti- 
mate court  of  appeal,  though  its  primacy  is  implied 
throughout.  Hence  when  the  subject  of  its  appellate 
jurisdiction  came  before  the  heads  of  the  African 
Church  in  the  fifth  century,  among  whom  was  S.  Au- 
gustine, their  deliberate  finding,  which  they  reported  to 
the  Pope,  and  on  which  they  acted  themselves,  was, 
that  "the  Nicene  decrees  plainly  committed  both  the 
inferior  clergy  and  the  bishops  themselves  to  their  own 
metropolitans :  having  most  wisely  and  justly  provided 
that  all  things  shall  be  determined  in  the  very  places 
where  they  arise ;  for  that  the  grace  of  the  Holy  Spirit 
will  never  be  wanting  in  every  province,  whereby  equi- 
ty may  be  prudentl}^  discerned  and  constantly  main- 
tained by  the  ministers  of  Christ,  especially  when  every 
man  has  liberty,  if  he  be  offended  with  the  determina- 
tion of  his  judges,  to  appeal  to  a  provincial,  or  if  need 
be  to  a  general  Council."  The  African  bishops  confine 
their  remarks  to  the  Nicene  Canons,  not  feeling  them- 
selves under  the  circumstances  called  upon  to  examine 
more  :  but  nobody  who  has  studied  the  remaining  can- 
ons comprised  in  this  code  could  maintain  that  its  regu- 
lations, on  the  subject  of  appeals,  as  it  stood  then,  could 
have  been  stated  more  fairly.  Since  then  indeed  the 
Sardican  Canons  authorizing  bishops  in  extreme  cases — 
and  bishops  alone — to  appeal  to  the  Pope,  which  were 
then  unknown  to  the  African  Church,  have  been  receiv 


ed  in  the  East  and  West  alike :  yet  against  them  we 
must  always  remember  is  to  be  set  the  9  th  Canon  of 
the  fourth  Council,  and  therefore  one  of  this  code  to 
which  Rome  is  bound — allowing  that  *'  if  any  bishop  or 
clergy  should  have  a  dispute  with  their  metropolitan, 
they  may  apply  to  the  exarch  of  their  diocese,  or  else 
to  the  throne  of  Constantinople,  and  have  their  case 
tried  theie.*  More  persons  are  thus  authorized  in  this 
code  to  appeal  to  the  See  of  Constantinople  than  m  the 
Sardican  Canons  themselves  to  Rome.  And  except  on 
this  one  subject  of  appeal,  jurisdiction  in  all  its  branches 
is  both  explicitly  and  rigorously  restricted  to  the  local 
boundaries  in  force  then,  and  never  to  be  enlarged. 
jLhe  consent  of  Rome  to  the  28th  Canon  of  Chalcedon 
was  emphatically  refused  and  persistently  withheld  on 
these  grounds.  The  2nd  Canon  of  Constantinople  is  to 
this  day  a  standing  witness  against  the  See  in  whose  in- 
terests the  28th  of  Chalcedon  was  framed :  "  Let  not 
bishops  go  out  of  their  diocese  to  churches  out  of  their 
bounds :  but  let  the  bishop  of  Alexandria,  according  to 
the  Canon,  administer  the  affairs  of  Egypt,  and  the 
bishops  of  the  East  the  affairs  of  the  East  only,  with  a 
salvo  to  the  ancient  privileges  of  the  Church  of  Antioch 

mentioned  in  the  Nicene  Canons And  let 

not  bishops  go  out  of  their  dioceses  to  ordinations,  or 
any  administration,  unless  they  be  invited.  And  by 
the  aforesaid  Canon  concerning  dioceses  being  observed 
it  is  evident  that  the  provincial  synod  will  have  the 
management  of  every  province,  as  was  decreed  at  Ni- 
caea.  The  Churches  amongst  the  barbarians  must  be 
governed  according  to  the  customs  which  prevailed  with 
their  ancestors." 


*  The  17th  Canon  is  to  the  same  effect. 


39 

This  Canon  was  occasioned  by  the  irregular  proceed- 
ings of  the  Patriarch  of  Alexandria ;  it  may  be  said  to 
embody  the  spirit  of  the  whole  code.  Another  Canon, 
the  8th  of  Ephesus,  occasioned  by  the  attempts  of  the 
Patriarch  of  Antioch  upon  the  independence  of  Cy- 
prus, is  not  less  worth  our  attention  and  runs  as  fol- 
lows : — "  Our  fellow-bishop  Reginus,  beloved  by  God, 
rnd  Zeno  and  Evagrius,  most  religious  bishops  of  the 
province  of  Cyprus,  with  him,  have  publicly  declared 
an  innovation  contrary  to  the  ecclesiastical  laws,  and 
the  Canons  of  the  Holy  Fathers,  and  which  touches  the 
liberty  of  all.  ...  The  holy  General  Synod  hath 
therefore  decreed  that  the  rights  of  every  province 
formerly,  and  from  the  beginning,  belonging  to  it  be 
preserved  clear  and  inviolable,  and  that  ancient  custom 
prevail  :  every  metropolitan  having  power  to  take 
copies  of  the  things  now  transacted  for  his  own  s^cu 
rity.  But  if  any  one  introduce  a  regulation  contrary 
to  the  present  determination^  the  Holy  General  Synod 
decrees  that  it  be  of  no  forced 

To  that  extent  were  the  Fathers  of  the  Third  Coun- 
cil persuaded  that  unity  in  the  Church  would  be  much 
more  imperilled  by  superseding  ancient  and  immemo- 
rial rights  to  secure  system,  than  by  leaving  a  few 
isolated  bishops  here  and  there  independent  of  any  ec- 
clesiastical superior,  and  "  autocephali,"  to  discourage 
innovation.  I  pass  straight  from  these  canons  to  the 
pseudo-decretals  and  pseudo-donation,  f  that  the  con- 
trast between  them  may  be  seen  more  readily.  For 
instance,  S.  Anacletus  in  an  encyclic  addressed  to  the 
faithful  is  made  to  say  : — "  Should  more  difficult  ques- 

t  Migne's  Patrol.,  vol.  exxx. 


40 

tions  arise,  or  should  the  case  be  one  of  high  impor- 
tance, or  concern  bishops  of  high  standing,  let  them  be 
referred,  in  case  of  appeal,  to  the  Apostolic  See ;  for 
this  the  Apostles  appointed  ly  command  of  our  Lord^ 
that  all  greater  and  more  arduous  questions  should  be 
brought  before  the  Apostolic  See  on  which  Christ 
founded  His  universal  Church."  And  again  :  '*  The 
Apostolic  See  was  appointed  by  the  Lord,  and  no  one 
else,  head  and  hinge  of  all  the  Churches  :  and  as  a  door 
is  swayed  by  its  hinge,  so,  by  disposal  of  the  Lord;  all 
Churches  are  swayed  as  this  holy  See  may  dispose."  Or, 
as  Constantine  in  his  pseudo-donation  is  supposed  to 
have  decreed,  "We  decree  and  ordain  that  it — the 
Roman  See — should  have  dominion  as  well  over  the 
four  principal  Sees  of  Alexandria,  Antioch,  Jerusalem, 
and  Constantinople,  as  over  all  the  Churches  of  God  in 
the'whole  earth  besides  :  and  that  its  pontiff  for  the  time 
being  should  be  superior  and  prince  of  all  the  w^orld, 
and  all  things  necessary  to  be  ordained  for  the  worship 
of  God,  or  for  the  faith  of  Christians,  to  be  regulated 
by  his  judgment.'* 

Where  have  we  a  syllable,  my  Lord,  of  all  this  in  the 
genuine  code  of  the  Church :  and  can  it  be  gainsaaid 
for  a  moment  to  which  of  these  two  theories  of  jurisdic- 
tion— that  of  the  pseudo-decretals,  or  that  of  the  code 
— the  development  of  the  Papacy  was  due,  or  that  it 
was  not  effected  literally  by  *'  disturbing  the  bounds  as- 
signed by  the  fathers,"  as  S.  Bernard  says,  among 
which  are,  conspicuously,  the  canons  to  which  I  have 
called  attention  ?  If  the  universal  jurisdiction  claimed 
by  the  Roman  Pontiff  in  the  middle  ages  was  not  based 
on  the  authority  of  the  pseudo-decretals,  why  were  they 
so   constantly  cited   in    its  support  ?     Where  is   the 

^\  ■ 


41 

law  of  the  whole  Church  that  either  attests  or  sanc- 
tions it  ? 

Local  synods  and  local  churches  cannot  undertake  to 
legislate  for  the  whole  Church,  much  less  repeal  what 
the  whole  Church  has  ordained.  Concordats  with  kings, 
a  fortiori^  can  do  neither.  Is  it  credible,  that  the  Pa- 
pacy should  have  so  often  appealed  to  these  forgeries 
for  its  extended  claims,  had  it  any  better  authorities — 
distinctive  authorities — to  fall  back  upon  ?  Every  dis- 
putant on  the  Latin  side  finds  in  these  forgeries  a  con- 
vincing argument  against  the  Greeks.  "  To  prove  this," 
the  universal  jurisdiction  of  the  Pope,  said  Abbot  Bar- 
laam,  himself  converted  by  them  from  the  Greek  Church, 
to  convert  his  countrymen — *'  one  need  only  look  through 
the  decretal  epistles  of  the  Roman  Pontiffs  from  S. 
Clement  to  S.  Silvester."  In  the  twenty-fifth  session 
of  the  Council  of  Florence  the  provincial  of  the  Do- 
minicans is  ordered  to  address  the  Greeks  on  the  rights 
of  the  Pope,  the  Pope  being  present.  Twice  he  argues 
from  the  pseudo-decretal  of  S.  Anacletus :  at  another 
time  from  a  synodical  letter  of  S.  Athanasius  to  Felix  : 
at  another  time  from  a  letter  of  Julius  to  the  Easterns  : 
all  forgeries.  Afterwards,  in  reply  to  objections  taken 
by  Bessarion,  in  conference,  to  their  authority,  apart 
from  any  question  of  their  authenticity,  his  position  in 
another  speech  is,  *'  that  those  decretal  epistles  of  the 
Popes  being  synodical  epistles  in  each  case,  are  entitled 
to  the  same  authority  as  the  canons  themselves."  Can 
we  need  further  evidence  of  the  weight  attached  to 
them  on  the  Latin  side  ?  Popes  appealed  to  them  in 
their  official  capacity  as  well  as  private  doctors.  Leo 
IX.  for  instance,  to  the  pseudo-donation  in  the  prolix 
epistle  written  by  him,  or  in  his  name,  to  Michael  Ce- 


42 

rularius,  Patriarch  of  Constantinople,  on  the  eve  of  the 
schism.  Eugenius  IV.  to  the  pseudo-decretals  of  S. 
Alexander  and  Julius,  during  the  negotiations  for  heal- 
ing it,  in  his  instructions  to  the  Armenians.  But  why, 
my  Lord,  need  I  travel  any  further  for  proofs,  when  in 
the  Catechism  of  the  Council  of  Trent,  that  has  been 
for  three  centuries  the  accredited  instructor  of  the 
clergy  themselves,  recommended  authoritatively  by  so 
many  Popes,  notwithstanding  the  real  value  of  these 
miserable  impostures  having  been  for  three  centuries 
before  the  world — I  find  these  words  ;%  "On  the  Pri. 
macy  of  the  Supreme  Pontifi*,  see  the  third  epistle 
(that  is,  pseudo-decretal)  of  Anacletus"!  Such  is, 
actually,  the  authority  to  which  the  clergy  of  our  own 
days  are  referred,  in  the  first  instance^  for  sound  and 
true  views  on  the  Primacy ;  afterwards,  when  they 
have  mastered  what  is  said  there,  they  may  turn  to 
three  more  authorities,  all  culled  Hkewise  from  Gratian, 
which  they  will  not  fail  to  interpret  in  accordance  with 
the  ideas  they  have  already  imbibed.  Nor  can  I  refrain 
from  calling  attention  to  a  much  more  flagrant  case. 
On  the  Sacrament  of  Confirmation  there  had  been 
many  questions  raised  by  the  Reformers  calculated  to 
set  people  thinking,  and  anxious  to  know  the  strict 
truth  respecting  it.  On  this,  the  Catechism  proceeds  as 
follows : 

"  Since  it  has  been  already  shewn  how  necessary  it 
would  be  to  teach  generally  respecting  all  the  Sacra- 
ments, by  whom  they  were  instituted,  so  there  is  need 
of  similar  instruction  respecting  Confirmation,  that  the 
faithful  may  be  the  more  attracted  by  the  holiness  of 


X  De  Ord.  Sacram.,  §  49. 


43 


this  Sacrament.  Pastors  must  therefore  explain  that 
not  onl3'«was  Christ  our  Lord  the  author  of  it,  but  that, 
on  the  authority  of  the  Roman  Pontiff  S.  Fabian  (the 
pseudo-decretal  attributed  to  him,  that  is),  He  instituted 
the  rite  of  the  chrism,  and  the  words  used  by  the  Cath- 
olic Church  in  its  administration." 

Strange  phenomenon  indeed,  that  the  asseverations  of 
such  authorities  should  be  still  ordered  to  be  taught  as 
Gospel  from  our  pulpits  in  these  days,  when  everybody 
that  is  acquainted  with  the  merest  rudiments  of  ecclesi- 
astical history  knows  how  absolutely  unauthenticated 
they  are  in  point  of  fact,  and  how  unquestionably  the 
•authorities  cited  to  prove  therm  are  forgeries.  Even 
Estius  says,  "PZer/^'we  opinantur  Ajjostolos  in  confer- 
endo  conjirmationis  sacramento^  chrismate  nunquam 
usosfuisse"  though  in  his  day  men  still  believed  in  the 
genuineness  of  the  pseudo-decretals.  Absolutely,  my 
Lord,  with  such  evidence  before  me,  I  am  unable  to  re- 
sist the  inference  that  truthfulness  is  not  one  of  the 
strongest  characteristics  of  the  teaching  of  even  the 
modern  Church  of  Rome :  for  is  not  this  a  case  palpa- 
bly where  its  highest  living  authorities  are  both  indiffer- 
ent to  having  possible  untruths  preached  from  the  pul- 
pit, and  something  more  than  indifferent  to  having  for- 
geries, after  their  detection  as  such,  adduced  from  the 
pulpit  to  authenticate  facts  V  Jealous  enough  they  may 
be  that  what  they  teach  should  be  believed  as  true : 
that  it  should  be  in  strict  accordance  with  actual  truth 
is  another  point,  to  which  with  the  evidence  before  me 
1  must  suppose  them  callous.  This,  again,  strongly  re- 
minds me  of  a  conversation  I  had  with  the  excellent 
French  priest  who  received  me  into  the  Roman  Catholic 
Church  some  time  subsequently  to  that  event.     T  had 


44 

as  an  Anglican  inquired  very  laboriously  into  the  genu- 
ineness of  the  *'  Santa  Casa :  "  and  having  visited  Naz- 
areth and  Loretto  since,  and  plunged  into  the  question 
anew  at  each  place,  came  back  more  thoroughly  con- 
vinced than  ever  of  its  utterly  fictitious  character,  not- 
withstanding the  privileges  bestowed  on  it  by  so  many 
Popes.  On  stating  my  convictions  to  him,  his  only  re- 
ply was :  "  There  are  many  things  in  the  Breviary 
which  1  do  not  believe  myself."  Oh !  the  stumbling- 
blocks  of  a  system  in  the  construction  of  which  forger- 
ies have  been  so  largely  used,  in  which  it  is  still  thought 
possible  for  the  clergy  to  derive  edification  from  legends 
which  they  cannot  believe,  and  the  people  instruction 
from  works  of  acknowledged  imposture  !  Let  us  hope 
that  this  will  be  one  of  the  very  first  questions  ventilated 
at  the  ensuing  Council. 

2.  A  few  words  on  the  Crusades,  and  I  sum  up.  My 
thesis  is  that  they  completed  the  ecclesiastical  aggrandise- 
ment of  the  Papacy  by  force.  Various  judgments  have 
been  formed  of  them  from  their  having  a  social  and  po- 
litical, as  well  as  ecclesiastical  side,  from  their  having 
been  espoused  by  so  many  good  as  well  as  bad  men, 
from  their  having  been  commenced  in  enthusiasm  though 
they  ended  in  crime.  But  view  them  iu  what  light  we 
please,  they  could  never  have  taken  place  without  the 
Pope,  and  therefore,  for  good  or  for  evil,  he  stands  com- 
mitted to  them  in  every  sense.  Now  even  socially  and 
politically,  I  contend  they  were  productive  of  much 
greater  calamity  to  mankind  than  good,  but  ecclesiasti- 
cally beyond  dispute  they  entailed  as  much  ruin  on  the 
Religion  and  Church  of  Christ  as  the  worst  that  has 
ever  befallen  either  under  the  Turks.  Socially,  they 
carried  but  little  religion   or   virtue  with  them  into  the 


45 

East  apart  from  chivalry  :  which  those  who  remained 
there  soon  lost  from  tyrannising  over  those  whom  they 
had  come  to  set  free  :  while  those  who  returned  deluged 
Europe  with  their  vices.  Very  different  were  the  com- 
modities imported  into  Europe  by  the  fugitive  Greeks 
from  Constantinople  when  it  fell  under  the  Turks. 
Merchants,  peacefully  trading  with  the  East,  would  have 
supplied  our  ancestors  with  all  the  real  improvements 
supposed  to  have  been  derived  through  the  Crusades,  at 
less  crime  by  half  Politically,  the  Crusades  proved  a 
fatal  mistake  for  humanity,  let  alone*  true  religion.  It 
has  been  often  set  to  the  credit  of  the  Popes  that  they 
saved  Europe  from  the  Turks.  History  says  that  they 
opened  the  door  by  which  the  Turks  came  in.  It  is  cer- 
tain that  the  Latins  proved  the  ruin  of  the  Greek  Em- 
pire much  more  than  the  Turks.  Had  the  Greek  Em- 
pire been  left  to  itself,  or  helped  honestly,  it  would  have 
barred  the  Turks  from  Europe  to  this  day,  and  pre- 
served all  the  civilization,  population,  and  Christianity 
contained  in  it  for  man.  But  ecclesiastically,  that  is,  in 
the  province  of  all  others  appertaining  to  the  Popes  as 
Heads  of  the  Church,  I  can  discover  no  redeeming  fea- 
ture whatever  in  the  Crusades  from  first  to  last.  The 
combination  of  the  cross  with  the  sword  demoralised  all 
orders  alike.  Under  their  influence  Christian  bishops 
became  generals  of  armies  and  shedders  of  blood  in 
hand-to-hand  conflicts  with  spear  and  shield.  What 
was  attempted  by  all  after  their  first  burst  of  enthusi- 
asm was  over,  was  to  subjugate  the  Churches  of  the 
East  to  that  of  Rome  in  a  way  opposed  to  the  canons 
immemorially  and  universally  received  by  the  Church. 
The  Easterns  were  trampled  upon  for  maintaining  their 
rights,  ejected  from  their  churches  as  far  as  was  possible, 


46 

and  supplanted  by  a  rival  hierarchy  wherever  the  Cru- 
sades conquered.  The  researches  of  the  late  Sir  Fran- 
cis Palgrave  go  far  to  prove  that  they  actually  set  out 
with  this  object :  some  of  the  first  letters  written  home 
by  them  to  the  Pope  who  organised  them  shew,  at  all 
events,  that  the  idea  dawned  upon  them  with  their  first 
success.  "  As  for  the  Turks,"  say  they,  *'  and  Pagans, 
we  have  overcome  them  :  but  the  heretical  Greeks  and 
Armenians,  Syrians  and  Jacobites,  we  cannot  over- 
come. Only  come  over  to  us,  and  complete  that  which 
you  have  commenced  with  us,  and  the  whole  world  will 
obey  you."*  Now  this  was  exactly  what  Innocent  III. 
completed  on  the  capture  of  Constantinople  by  the 
Franks  and  Venetians.  Of  all  breaches  of  the  canons 
in  ec(51esiastical  history,  it  would  be  difficult  to  find  one 
more  flagrant  than  the  act  of  Innocent  in  consecrating 
Morosini  Patriarch  of  Constantinople,  his  own  "  vener- 
able brother,"  as  he  had  styled  him  but  a  short  time  be- 
fore, John  Camater,  the  rightful  patriarch,  being  alive, 
and  expelled  by  force,  without  any  previous  trial  or  in- 
quiry. The  excuse  for  Innocent  is  that  he  believed  in 
the  genuineness  of  the  pseudo-decretals,  and  was  acting 
in  accordance  with  other  established  precedents  of 
might  made  right.  But  his  own  letters  testify  to  a  mind 
in  perpetual  conflict  between  his  own  better  feelings 
and  the  requirements  of  his  office.  He  had  excommun- 
icated the  Venetians  already  for  having  invaded  Chris- 
tian territory  :  he  is  subsequently  found  accepting  their 
conquests,  and  with  his  own  hands  consecrating  their 
nominee;  What  a  plight  for  one  calling  himself  Head 
of  the  Church  to  be  reduced  to  by  his  worldly  ties  I     To 


*  Baluz.  Miscel.  iii.  60,  cd  Mansi. 


47 

have  to  consent  to  the  desolation  by  fire  and  sword  of 
what  was  then  infinitely  the  largest  and  most  flourishing 
part  of  the  Church  by  the  other  in  contempt  of  his  own 
orders  ;  to  look  on  while  the  ancient  landmarks  of  the 
Church  were  one  after  another  uptorn  by  violence  ;  and 
then,  by  accepting  a  share  of  the  spoils  himself,  to  iden- 
tify not  himself  merely  but  his  See  forever,  with  the  out- 
rageousness  of  the  whole  proceeding  !  What  frightful 
hypocrisy,  what  downright  profanity  for  this  ever  to 
have  been  designated  a  Crusade,  a  holy  war,  a  war 
waged  in  behalf  of  the  life-giving  Cross !  Who  can 
possibly  believe  in  a  God  of  justice,  and  doubt  his  hold- 
ing the  Papacy  heavily  responsible  for  all  this  ? 

My  Lord,  there  is  a  solemn  document  before  the 
world — I  may  say  one  of  the  solemnest — addressed  to 
us  all  without  exception,  of  which  the  meanest  is  there- 
fore justified  in  requesting  explanations,  should  it  con- 
tain anything  hard  to  be  understood,  or  beyond  his  ken. 
I  confine  my  request  to  the  following  passage  :  "Known 
unto  all  are  the  unwearied  cares  wherewith  the  Roman 
pontiffs  have  laboured  to  defend  the  deposit  of  faith,  the 
discipline  of  the  clergy,  and  their  education  in  sanctity 
and  doctrine,  as  well  as  the  holiness  and  dignity  of  the 
matrimonial  state,  have  promoted  more  and  more  the 
Christian  education  of  both  sexes,  and  have  studied  to 
provide  for  and  to  cherish  religion,  piety,  and  good 
morals  :  to  defend  justice,  and  the  tranquility,  order  and 
prosperity  of  civil  society."  If  this  assertion  is  to  be 
understood  de  jure^  as  a  declaration  of  what  the  Roman 
pontiffs  ought  to  have  done  in  all  ages,  nothing  could 
be  more  true  :  but  if  de  facto^  as  a  declaration  of  what 
they  have  done  for  the  last  thousand  years,  the  history 
of  the  Crusades  alone  would  suffice  to  determine  the 


48 

extent  to  which  the  reverse  is  more  true.     Further  com- 
ment is  needless. 

What,  then,  are  the  conclusions  ensuing  from  the 
facts  which  have  been  adduced  ?  First,  that  although 
Rome  may  have  never  erred  from  the  Faith  in  point  of 
dogma,  she  has  trifled  with  it  on  one  point  in  practice 
so  often  for  the  last  thousand  years,  that  her  conduct 
has  been  a  stumbling-block  to  others,  and  occasioned  a 
division  of  the  Eastern  and  Western  Churches  on  doc- 
trinal grounds.  Secondly,  that  by  allowing  the  primi- 
tive code  of  the  Church  to  be  stealthily  supplanted  by 
a  new  code  based  upon  forgeries,  which  she  herself  ac- 
cepted without  examination,  and  endeavored  to  make 
binding  upon  others  by  violence,  she  has  occasioned  a 
division  of  the  Eastern  and  Western  Churches  on  disci- 
plinary grounds  :  in  other  words,  that  it  is  to  the  flagrant 
unfaithfulness  and  injustice  of  her  governmental  policy, 
both  as  regards  doctrine  and  discipline,  that  secession 
from  her  Communion  has  been,  and  is  still,  due. 

I  am  not  aware  that  any  demur  to  this  conclusion,  in 
theory,  can  be  raised  even  by  maximisers.  But  I  will 
begin  with  what  I  trust  I  may  designate  without  offence 
the  high  orthodox.  In  a  Review,  stated  on  its  title- 
page  to  be  '*  Par  les  Peres  de  la  Compagnie  de  Jesus," 
and  therefore  committing  the  whole  Society  to  its  con- 
tents, I  read,  exactly  two  years  ago  this  month,  as  fol- 
lows, in  a  paper  on  the  pseudo-decretals.*  "Cette  nou- 
velle  discipline" — that  of  the  pseudo-decretals,  what  he 
had  just  called  "  la  reforme  pseudo-Isidorienne  !  !  ! — 
6tait  bonne  assurement."  It  would  have  been  difficult 
for  the  writer  to  have  said  otherwise,  for  the  reasons 


^  Etudes  Religieuses,  No.  47,  p.  392. 


49 

he   gives — "  Adoptee   par   S.   Nicholas  en  865  par  le 
huitieme  concile  oecumenique  en  870" — not  received  by 
the  East — ^'confirmee  far  le  concile  de  Trent  en  1564, 
elle  est  dej^uis  neufsiecles  le  droit  commun  dans  VEglise 
Catholiquey  I !  !     Have  I  said  more  than  this,  namely, 
that  our  existing  system  originated  with,  and  is  lased 
on,  the  pseudo-decretals  V     To   his  infinite    credit,  the 
writer   adds,  "  Mais   Tancienne   discipline   6tait  bonne 
aussi,  puisque,  pendant  les  huit  premiers  siecles,  I'Eglise 
n'en  avait  point  connu  d'autre  ...  La  nouvelle  disci- 
pline  pouvait   par   consequent  etre   utile:  elle  n  etait 
point  necessaire.     Ce  qu'il  est  impossible  de  justifier  et 
meme  d'excuser,  c'est  le  moyen  employe  par  le  pseudo- 
Isidore  pour  arriver  a  ses  fins.     Le  mensonge  demeure 
toujours  un  mal,  meme  lorsque  celui  qui  en  use  se  pro- 
pose un  bien.     Non  faciamus  mala  ut'ceniant  bona,     Et 
que  Ton  ne  vienne  pas  nous  dire :  il  n'y  a  pas  un  im- 
posture, mais  seulement  malentendu.     Que  Ton  ne  re- 
jette  pas   la  meprise,  dont  le  monde  Chretien  d  Qtk.  la 
dupe  pendant  sept  siecles^  sur  un  concours  de  circonstan- 
ces   independantes   de    la   volonte    du   pseudo-Isidore. 
Non,  il   y  a  eu  de  sa  part  mensonge  premedite."     In 
fine  :  "  Les  fausses  decretals. ?^'on^  produit  que  du  maV 
Aye,  but  whose  business  was  it  to  see'that  Christendom 
should  not  have  been  duped  and  damaged  in  this  way, 
and  to  have  said  "  non  possumus"  a  thousand  times  be- 
fore they  allowed  it,  instead  of  becoming  active  parties 
to  it  themselves  ?     However,  it  is  admitted  on  all  hands 
that  Popes  may   make  "  serious  mistakes'  as  Church- 
governors.     "  To  every  Pope,"  said  the  DuUin  llexieiCj 
in  July  last,  "  appertains  the  office  on  the  one  hand  of 
teaching  the  Church  :  on  the  other  hand,  of  ruling  and 
piloting  her.     It   is   admitted  by  all  Catholics  without 
4 


•     50 

exception  that  a  Pope  may  make  serious  mistakes  in 
exercising  this  latter  office,  though  they  well  know  that 
on  the  whole  he  obtains  most  special  assistance  of  the 
Holy  Ghost  in  ifs  execution."  Certainly,  nothing  but 
"  the  most  special  assistance  of  the  Holy  Ghost"  could 
have  prevented  their  "serious  mistakes''  from  becoming 
more  serious,  or  overruled  the  effects  of  their  misrule 
so  as  to  exhibit  the  entire  dialogue  between  our  Lord 
and  S.  Peter  on  a  well-known  occasion,  interpreted  by 
the  light  of  events  in  the  clearest  manner.  Doctrinal 
inerrancy  was  promised  by  our  Lord  to  S.  Peter,  stand- 
ing at'  the  head,  and  speaking  in  the  name,  of  all  the 
Apostles,  in  reply  to  a  question  addressed  to  them  all, 
and  not  to  him  alone.  His  successors,  down  to  the 
President  of  the  Council  of  Florence  himself,  have  ac- 
knowledged, as  I  shall  point  out  presently,  that  they 
have  never  spoken  in  the  name  of  the  whole  Church 
since  the  schism. 

The  very  first  time  S.  Peter  essayed  teaching  on  his 
own  judgment,  after  his  confession^  and  apart  from  the 
rest,  he  was  told  by  our  Lord  authoritatively ;  "  Thou 
savourest  not  the  things  that  be  of  God,  but  those  that 
be  of  men."  The  other  Apostles,  therefore,  had  they 
followed  or  upheld  him  in  what  he  then  taught,  would 
have  done  wrong.  In  the  same  way,  admitting  all  the 
doctrinal  inerrancy  possessed  by  S.  Peter  to  have  been 
bequeathed  by  him  to  his  successors,  as  it  has  not  plain- 
ly preserved  them  from  allowing  the  Creed  of  the 
Church  to  be  interpolated  at  the  will  of  kings  uncanon- 
ically :  from  upholding  forgeries  as  authentic  testimo-  I 
ny:  from  perpetrating  the  most  iniquitous  acts  them* 
selves,  under  cover  of  their  authority,  and  citing  them 
in  proof  of  some  of  the  gravest  points  in    their  own  dis- 


51 

tinctive  teaching  respecting  the  Sacranients,  unsupport- 
ed by  other  testimony,  it  cannot  follow  from  the  mere 
possession  of  this  gift  by  them  ever  so  completely,  that 
corporate  union  with  Rome  can  never  be  maintained 
too  dearly,  or  that  disunion  with  Rome  may  never  have 
been  a  duty.  The  Popes  are  not  to  be  followed  where 
they  have  erred,  any  more  than  S.  Peter :  therefore, 
when  they  made  fellowship  with  their  errors  indis- 
pensable to  fellowship  with  their  See,  so  that  one 
could  not  be  maintained  without  the  other,  the  only 
course  left  was  to  abandon  both.  Unerring  faith  is  nec- 
essar}'-  for  the  Church,  but  it  is  not  all  that  is  necessary 
— honesty,  justice,  truthfulness,  meekness,  and  self-de- 
nial, are  among  the  determining  principles  that  bind 
Christians  together,  as  well  as  their  faith.  Unerring 
faith  must  govern  in  conformity  with  all  these,  or  it  must 
cease  to  govern.  It  cannot  bear  its  possessor  harmless 
for  moral  obliquities  of  what  kind  soever  in  the  conduct 
of  the  body  politic:  it  will  but  serve  to  enhance  the 
guilt  of  its  possessor,  like  the  prophetic  gift  of  the  high- 
priest  who  condemned  Christ ;  and  ceasing  to  govern, 
it  must  cease  to  speak,  for  it  is  tied  to  speak  at  the  head 
and  in  the  name  of  the  whole  body.  The  lungs  are  in 
the  body,  though  the  mouth  is  in  the  head  :  therefore, 
when  separated,  neither  can  utter  in  the  same  sense  as 
when  united,  not  that  their  separation  need  in  the  cor- 
porate sense  be  fatal  to  their  vitality.  Every  truth 
which  they  had  enunciated  infallibly  when  united  might 
be  retained  equally  by  both  after  they  had  parted  com- 
pany, and  both  might  be  preserved  from  error  in  their 
isolation  by  a  special  providence,  till  their  re-union. 
Both  too  might  speak,  and  speak  the  truth  equally,  but 
what  they  said  would  not  be  beyond  question  or  revi- 


52 

sion.  It  might  prove  as  true  as  any  of  the  most  infalli- 
ble truths  ever  promulgated, but  not  having  the  promise 
of  infallibility  attached  to  it  under  the  circumstances 
under  which  it  was  uttered,  it  would  require  that  ple- 
nary confirmation  whicl^  union  alone  can  ensure. 

This  theory,  besides  harmonizing  with  facts  which  it  is 
impossible  to  gloss  over  or  dispute,  receives  additional 
countenance  from  the  action  as  well  as  the  language  of 
the  Popes  since  the  schism,  and  explains  existing  phenom-  " 
en  a  much  more  reasonably,  as  I  shall  hope  to  shew,  than 
any  other.  In  general,  the  action  of  Kome  has  been 
prompt,  peremptory,  and  decisive,  almost  to  a  fault ; 
bold  almost  to  rashness ;  unhesitating  almost  to  ario- 
gance:  she  seems  intent  on  impressing  people  with 
nothing  so  much  as  her  own  self-sufficiency :  her  utter 
inability  to  commit  a  mistake  of  any  kind,  or  be  in  the 
wrong.  Contrast  this  with  her  extraordinary  shiftiness  ■ 
and  indecision  on  the  two  Creeds,  the  old  and  the  inter- 
polated. When  has  she  ever  affirmed  them  to  be  doc- 
trinally  the  same :  what,  according  to  her,  is  the  exact  • 
difference  between  their  respective  professiorjs  on  the 
Procession  ?  As  to  their  use,  we  can  onl}^  go  back  to 
ground  already  traversed.  Leo  III.  forbade  the  use  of 
the  interpolated  form.  His  successors  winked  at  it,  and 
ended  by  adopting  it  themselves  :  still,  they  doubted  a- 
bout  enforcing  it  on  those  who  clung  to  the  oid  form. 
Gregory  X.  read  the  letters  of  the  Easterns  at  the  Sec- 
ond Council  of  Lyons,  begging  to  be  excused  using  the 
interpolated  Creed,  without  answering  them:  but  the 
Creed  was  thrice  chanted  there  in  that  form  exclusive- 
ly notwithstanding.  Innocent  v., 'who  succeeded  him,, 
was  imperative  that  the  "  Filloque"  clause  ''  should  not 
be   omitted  on   any  account  by  them  in    chanting  the: 


53 

C!reed."  Nicholas  III.  went  further,  and  added  that 
''  as  unity  of  faith  could  not  consist  with  diversity  in  those 
that  professed  .  .  .  therefore,  the  desire  of  the  Roman 
Church  was,  that  it  should  be  chanted  uniformly  with 
the  additional  clause  by  the  Greeks  as  well  as  the  Lat- 
ins." This  was,  in  eflect,  deciding  that  the  old  form  of 
the  creed  should  be  superseded  :  but  it  was  never  car- 
ried out.  When  the  subject  was  revived  at  the  Coun- 
cil of  Florence,  Rome  was  more  diplomatic  than  she  had 
ever  been  previously.  No  Creed  at  all  was  recited 
there,  nor  was  any  hint  dropped  whether  both  forms 
conjointly,  or  one  without  the  other,  should  be  considered 
the  Creed  of  the  Church.  These  various  policies  having 
to  be  reconciled  with  each  other,  it  was  at  length  ruled 
by  Clement  VIII.  and  Benedict  XIY.  successively  . 
<*  Grmci  credere  tenentur  etiam  a  Fllio  Spiritum  S.  pro- 
cedere,  sed  non  tenentur  pronuntiare,  nisi  subesset  scan- 
dalum."  I  am  indebted  to  you,  my  Lord,  for  directing 
my  attention^to  this  position  more  particularly.  Let  us 
see  how  it' would  have  read  in  the  mouth  of  S.  Athana- 
sius.  "  Ariani  credere  tenentur  Filiurn  Homousion  esse 
cum  Patre,  sed  non  tenentur  pronuntiare^  nisi  subesset 
scandalum."  The  Alexandrine  fathers,  a.  d.  362,  under 
S.  Athanasius,  probably  went  greater  lengths  in  conde- 
scendence than  any  Council  before  or  since :  but  to  the 
extent  of  allowingTthe  Nicehe  Creed  to  be  recite^  by 
heretics  without  the  very  word  inserted  in  it  to  con- 
found their  heresy,  Pope  Liberius  himself,  had  he  been 
present,  could  not  have  induced  them  to  go  ;  What  then  ? 
Were  Clement  VIIL  and  Benedict  XIY.  either-of  them 
disposed  to  be  lukewarm  with  heresy  ?  I  think  not. 
The  true  meaning  of  their  decision  must  be  that  in  their 
inmost  souls  they  were  far  from  considering  the  Greeks 


64 

heretics.  How,  indeed,  could  they,  seeing  that  at  the 
Councif  of  Florence  the  representatives  of  the  Eastern 
Church  sat,  debated,  and  subscribed  on  the  same  terms 
as  the  Western  ?  There  had  also  been  a  passage  in  the 
original  decree  passed  at  Basle  for  inviting  them  thither, 
deliberately  cancelled,  because  the  word  "  heretics"  or 
"  dissenters"  had  crept  into  it  unawares,  as  was  said, 
in  speaking  of  the  Greeks.  Further,  on  what  grounds 
had  the  Councils  of  Lyons  and  Florence  themselves 
been  summoned  ?  As  Gregory  X.  puts  it : — "  Because 
of  his  extreme  bitterness  in  beholding  the  rent  of  the 
Universal  Church  foreshadowed  in  the  net  of  Peter  the 
fisherman,  that  hrahe  for  the  multitude  of  fishes  which 
it  enclosed  :  we  do  not  say  divided  as  regards  its  faith.  . 
.  .  but  notoriously  and  lamentably  divided  as  regards 
its  faithful  members."  Or,  as  Eugenius  IV.  told  his  en- 
voys ;  "  It  is  for  the  union  of  the  Western  and  Eastern 
Church,  so  long  and  ardently  desired  by  us,  that  you  are 
sent ;"  or,  as  he  told  the  Greeks  when  he  despaired  of 
union  :  "In  what  shall  we  be  benefitted  {"f  we  fail  to 
unite  the  Church  of  God  ?"  *  It  was  in  strictest  con- 
formity with  this  view  that  the  Council  of  Florence  was 
to  have  been  accepted  on  both  sides,  had  it  succeeded, 
as  the  Eighth  ^Ecumenical  Council :  the  title  under  which 
its  acts  were  literally  first  published  in  Latin,  a.  d. 
1526,  in  the  Pontificate  of  Clement  VII,  and  under  which 
Cardinal  Pole  still  speaks  of  it  in  his  work  of  so  much 
interest  to  us  all,  *'  The  Reformation  of  England,"  dated 
Lambeth,  1556.  And  now,  in  our  own  days,  there  is 
the  Letter  Apostolic  of  Pius  IX.  "to  the  bishops  of  the 
Churches  of  the  Eastern  Rite"  not  in  communion  with 


*I  have  collected  many  more  such  passages  in  Part  11.  of  i 
my  book,  v.  pp.  259—61,  ahd  337—40. 


55 

him,  containing  the  following  sentence,  of  which  the  ink 
is  scarce  dry :  ^'We  conjure  you  to  come  to  this  General  . 
Council,  as  your  predecessors  came  to  the  Second  Coun- 
cil of  Lyons,  held  by  the  blessed  Gregory,  our  predeces- 
sor of  venerated  memory,  and  to  the  Council  of  Florence^ 
celebrated  hy  our  predecessor  of  happy  memory,  Euge- 
nius  IV. :  that,  thus  renewing  the  bonds  of  ancient  af- 
fection, and  recalling  to  life  that  ancient  peace,  the 
heavenly  and  blessed  gift  of  Christ,  which  in  the  course 
of  ages  has  become  lost  to  us,  we  may  make  the  serene 
brightness  of  longed-for  union  shine  resplendent  before 
all,  after  being  sadly  clouded,  and  after  the  painful  dark- 
ness of  long-lived  discussion.'* 

If  the  Easterns  are  invited  to  come  to  this  General 
Council  as  their  predecessors  came  to  the  Councils  of 
Lyons  and  Florence,  the  inference  is  inevitable  that  his 
present  Holiness  equally  throws  himself  into  the  senti- 
ments of  his  predecessors,  and  adopts  their  language. 
That  is  to  say,  Pius  IX.  beholds,  and  has  acted  on  be- 
holding, the  same  spectacle  that  caused  Gregory  X. 
so  much  anguish — the  rent  of  the  Universal  Church 
foreshadowed  in  the  net  of  Peter  the  fisherman,  that 
brake  ....  not,  indeed,  divided  as  regards  its 
faith  ....  but  notoriously  and  lamentably  di- 
vided as  regards  its  faithful  members :  and  his  object  at 
the  forthcoming  Council  will  be  what  Eugenius  IV.  as- 
sured the  Greeks  his  was,  "to  unite  the  Church  of  God" 
in  that  sense.  Therefore,  not  less  inevitably,  the  formal 
teaching  of  the  Popes,  ever  since  the  schism  began  till 
now,  has  been  that  the  Church  is  divided  as  regards  her 
members,  and  that*  there  are  Churches  forming  part  of 
the  Catholic  Church,  which  are,  and  have  been  for  ages, 
out  of  communion  with  their  See.     The  Popes,  indeed, 


56 

have  never  practically  said  this  of  any  Churches  but 
the  Eastern,  and  of  the  Eastern  but  those  communicat- 
ing with  the  Patriarch  of  Constantinople ;  Still,  in  ad- 
mitting thus  much,  they  most  unquestionably  concede 
that  what  we  call  the  Roman  Catholic  Church  has  not 
constituted  the  whole  Church,  nor  they  themselves  con- 
sequently spoken  at  the  head  of  the  whole  Church,  since 
the  schism.  To  an  impartial  observer  it  would  appear 
as  though  they  were  far  from  feeling  easy  themselves 
under  the  circumstances :  far  from  certain,  that  if  their 
title-deeds  were  examined  into,  their  de  facto  position 
might  not  be  shaken  :  unable  to  divest  themselves  of  the 
idea  that  the  Easterns  had  not  been  wholly  to  blame  for 
withdrawing  from  their  Communion,  nor  were  chargea- 
ble with  heresy  for  withholding  their  assent  to  the  adop- 
tion of  the  '•''Filioque ''  clause.  Else,  why  not  have  sum- 
moned a  General  Council  long  since  to  condemn  them 
as  heretics,  instead  of  inviting  them  to  a  General  Coun- 
cil again  and  again  to  discuss  doctrine  under  their  pres- 
idency ? 

To  the  West,  where  they  ruled  by  patriarchal  as  well 
as  papal  right,  they  might  well  be  supposed  to  have 
adopted  a  more  confident  tone  since  the  Reformation ; 
but  the  closer  it  is  scrutinised  the  further  it  is  seen  to  be 
from  unhesitating  and  decisive.  Those  w-ho  had  re- 
nounced their  Communion  were  invited  to  the  Council 
of  Trent  not  to  be  condemned,  but  to  be  heard.  If  Lu- 
ther was  excommunicated  twice,  the  Confession  of 
Augsburg  has  never  as  yet  been  anathematized:  if 
Queen  Elizabeth  was  deposed,  the  Council  of  Trent  had 
abstained  deliberately  from  affirming  that  the  bishops 
w^ho  had  been  consecrated  in  her  reign  and  at  her  bid- 
ding were  no  bishops.     Even   the  Thirty-nine  Articles 


57  ^ 

escaped  censure.  Hence,  ever  since  the  Council  of 
Trent  separated  until  now,  attempts  have  been  made 
continually;  whether  successful  or  not,  to  reconcile  the 
Confession  of  Augsburg  and  the  Thirty-nine  Articles 
with  its  decrees.  Anglican  Orders,  if  they  have  not 
been  recognized  in  practice,  have  never  been  declared 
invalid,  still  less  the  grounds  of  their  invalidity  set  forth. 
It  might  be  said  that  all  this  has  been  the  effect  of 
moderation  and  paternal  tenderness  on  the  part  of  the 
Popes :  there  can  be  little  doubt  that  it  has  commend- 
ed itself  to  their  policy ;  still,  as  one  of  the  most  warmly 
debated  points  in  modern  times  has  been  the'  power  of 
the  Popes  and  their  true  relation  to  the  Church,  who 
can  fail  to  be  struck  with  the  absence  of  any  formal  as- 
sertion on  their  part  that  the  terms  "  Catholic "  and 
"  Eoman  Catholic  "  are  strictly  convertible — with  the 
fact  that  they  have  never  striven  to  appropriate  the 
term  "  Catholic,"  pure  and  simple,  to  their  own  Com- 
munion, but  have  commonly  called  it  themselves,  and 
been  content  that  it  should  be  called  by  others,  the  Ro- 
man Catholic  Church,  as  being  its  strict  and  adequate 
title.  No  doubt  they  have  never  failed  to  assert  the 
doctrine  of  their  own  headship  by  divine  right  over  the 
whole  Church  in  the  strongest  terms,  and  the  teaching 
of  all  those  who  obey  them  has  always  been  that^  the 
Catholic  Church  has  a  visible  Head  upon  earth,  under 
Christ,  called  the  Pope :  still  all  such  teaching,  read  by 
the  light  of  their  own  admissions  respecting  the  Eastern 
Church,  is  seen  to  be  but  a  declaration  of  what  ought  to 
be,  not  of  what  is ;  a  picture  of  the  ideal  or  of  the  prim- 
itive, not  of  the  actually  existing  Church.  Where,  in- 
deed, is  the  part  of  Christendom  seriously  purporting  to 
call  itself  the  Catholic  Church  in  these  days  ?     Roman- 


58 

■if 

Cailiolic,  Anglo-Catholic,  Episcopal,  Orthodox,  or  Pres- 
byterian, all  in  their  degree  seem  influenced  by  some 
hidden  spell  to  abstain  from  arrogating  to  themselves 
or  attributing  to  each  other  the  epithet  of  '*  Catholic  " 
without  qualification,  as  it  is  applied  to  the  Church  in 
the  Creed.  Test  existing  phenomena  by  this  theory, 
and  the  results  are  plain  and  straightforward.  One  of 
its  logical  results  would  be  that  the  administration  of  the' 
Christian  Sacraments  might  be  frequented  with  profit 
outside  the  pale  of  the  Roman  Communion.  Is  this 
confirmed  by  experience  ?  My  Lord,  my  own  expe- 
rience, which  is  confined  to  the  single  Communion  in 
which  you  formerly  bore  office,  that  of  the  Church  of 
England,  says  emphatically  that  it  is :  and  there  is  no 
canon  or  ordinance  that  I  know  of  forbidding  me  to 
maintain  it.  You  have  preceded  me  yourself  in  expa- 
tiating on  thjB  workings  of  the  Holy  Spirit  in  the  Church 
of  England  with  your  accustomed  eloquence,  and  have 
not  hesitated  to  attribute  to  its  members  many  graces 
in  virtue  of  the  Sacrament  of  Baptism  which  you  allow 
they  administer  on  the  whole  validly ,  but  there  you 
stop.  I  feel  morally  constrained  to  go  further  still.  If 
I  had  to  die  for  it,  1  could  not  possibly  subscribe  to  the 
idea  that  the  Sacraments  to  which  I  am  admitted  week 
after  week  in  the  Roman  Communion  —Confession  and 
the  Holy  Eucharist,  for  instance — confer  any  graces, 
any  privileges,  essentially  diffierent  from  what  I  used  to 
derive  from  those  same  Sacraments,  frequented  with  the 
same  dispositions,  in  the  Church  of  England.  On  the 
contrary,  I  go  so  far  as  to  say,  that  comparing  one  with 
another  strictly  some  of  the  most  edifying  communions 
that  I  can  remember  in  all  my  life  were  made  in  the 
Church  of  England    and  administered  to  me  by  some 


59 

that  have  since  submitted  to  be  re-ordained  in  the 
Church  of  Rome  ;  a  ceremony,  therefore,  which,  except 
as  qualifying  them  to  undertake  duty  there,  I  must  con- 
sider superfluous.  Assuredly,  so  far  as  the  registers 
of  my  own  spiritual  life  carry  me,  1  have  not  been  able 
to  discover  any  greater  preservatives  from  sin,  any 
greater  incentives  to  holiness,  in  any  that  I  have  receiv- 
ed since  :  though,  in  saying  this,  I  am  far  froin  intending 
any  derogation  to  the  latter.  I  frequent  them  regular- 
ly :  I  prize  them  exceedingly :  I  have  no  fault  to  find 
with  their  administration  or  their  administrators  in 
general.  All  that  I  was  ever  taught  to  expect  from 
them  they  do  foi  me,  due  allowance  being  made  for  my 
own  shortcomings.  Only  I  cannot  possibly  subscribe  to 
the  notion  of  my  having  been  a  stranger  to  their  bene- 
ficial effects  till  I  joined  the  Roman  Communion,  and  I 
deny  that  it  was  my  faith  alone  that  made  them  what 
they  were  to  me  before  then,  unless  it  is  through  my 
faith  alone  that  they  are  what  they  are  to  me  now. 
Holding  myself  that  there  are  realities  attaching  to  the 
Sacraments  of  an  oljective  character,  I  am  persuaded, 
and  have  been  more  and  more  confirmed  in  this  con- 
viction as  I  have  grown  older,  that  the  Sacraments  ad- 
ministered in  the  Church  of  England  are  realities,  ob- 
jective realities,  to  the  same  extent  as  any  that  I  could 
now  receive  at  your  hands :  so  that  you  yourself  there- 
fore consecrated  the  Eucharist  as  truly  when  you  were 
Vicar  of  Lavington  as  you  have  ever  done  since.  This 
may  or  may  not  be  your  own  belief:  but  you  shall  be 
one  of  my  foremost  witnesses  to  its  credibility,  for  I  am 
far  from  basing  it  on  the  experiences  of  my  own  soul. 
My  Lord,  I  have  always  been  accustomed  to  look  upon 
the  Sacraments  as  so  many  means  of  grace,  and  to  esti- 


60 

mate  their  value,  not  by  the  statements  of  theologians, 
but  by  their  effects  on  myself,  my  neighbours,  and  man- 
kind at  large.  And  the  vast  difference  between  the 
moral  tone  of  society  in  the  Christian  and  the  pagan 
worlds  I  attribute  not  merely  to  the  superiority  of  the 
rule  of  life  prescribed  in  the  Gospels,  but  to  the  inher- 
ent grace  of  the  Sacraments  enabling  and  assisting  us 
to  keep  it  to  the  extent  we  do.  Taking  this  principle 
for  my  guide,  I  have  been  engaged  constantly  since  I 
joined  the  Roman  Communion  in  instituting  compari- 
sons between  members  of  the  Church  of  England  and 
members  of  the  Church  of  Rome  generally,  and  be- 
tween our  former  and  our  present  selves  in  particular ; 
or  between  Christianity  in  England  and  on  the  Conti- 
nent ;  and  the  result  in  each  caje  has  been  to  confirm 
me  in  the  belief  which  I  have  expressed  already,  that 
the  notion  of  the  Sacraments  exercising  any  greater  in- 
fluence upon  the  heart  and  life  in  the  Church  of  Rome 
than  in  the  Church  of  England,  admitting  the  disposi- 
tions of  those  who  frequent  them  to  be  th  ^  same  in  both 
cases,  is  not  merely  preposterous,  but  as  contrary  both 
to  faith  and  fact  as  is  the  opinion  that  the  Pope  is  Anti- 
christ and  the  Man  of  Sin.  My  Lord,  there  is  no  per- 
son in  his  sober  senses  who  could  affirm  that  you,  for 
instance,  began  to  be  a  devout,  earnest,  intelligent  follow- 
er of  Christ,  an  admirable  master  of  the  inner  and  the 
hidden  life,  a  glorious  example  of  self-sacrifice,  a  deep 
expounder  of  revealed  mysteries  and  Gospel  truths, 
when  you  embraced  the  Roman  Communion ;  or  that 
all  those  graces  which  you  exhibited  previously  in  the 
sight  of  men  could  be  deduced  from  the  one  rite  which 
you  received  unconsciously  as  a  child,  counteracted  by 
all  the  bad  and  unwholesome  food  on  which,  according 


61 

to   this   hypothesis,  you   must   have   lived  ever  after- 
wards. 

In  the  same  way  there  is  no  ordinary  person  in  his 
sober  senses  who  could  affect  to  discover  any  fundamen- 
tal change  for  the  better  in  you,  morally  or  religiously, 
now  from  what  you  were  then.  There  are  some,  on 
the  contrary,  to  my  knowledge,  of  your  existing  flock 
who  profess  that  they  have  not  half  the  liking  for  the 
sermons  which  they  hear  you  deliver  as  Archbishop  of 
Westminster  that  they  have  for  the  dear  old  volumes 
which  you  published  as  Archdeacon  of  Chichester,  a& 
fresh  and  full  of  fragrance  to  their  instincts  as  ever.  And 
I  have  heard  the  same  said  of  another,  whose  parochial 
sermons,  hailed  as  a  masterpiece  on  their  first  appear- 
ance, have  just  burst  forth  into  a  second  spring.  Peo- 
ple say  that  the  sermons  which  ci-devant  Anglican  cler- 
gymen of  note  preached  formerly,  read  so  much  more 
natural  than  any  that  they  have  since  delivered  from 
Roman  Catholic  pulpits.  They  argued  impartially, 
then,  as  men  whose  sole  desire  it  was  both  to  get  at  the 
truth,  and  uphold  it  at  any  cost:  they  never  feared  look- 
ing facts  in  the  face,  and  were  as  little  given  to  exag- 
gerate those  that  made  for  them,  as  to  keep  out  of  sight 
or  evade  by  subterfuge  those  which  they  could  neith- 
er excuse  nor  explain.  They  were  never  tired  of  con- 
fessing their  own  sins  or  shortcomings.  In  a  word,  their 
tone  was  frank,  honest,  and  manly.  Now,  they  may 
preach  with  the  same  energy,  but  it  is  as  though 
they  preached  under  constraint  or  dictation.  Either 
they  are  high-flown  and  exaggerated :  or  else  punctil- 
ious and  reserved  :  weighing  each  word  as  if  they  were 
repeatmg  a  task :  always  artificial,  never  themselves  : 
as  if  committed  to  a  thesis,  which  they  must  defend  at 


62 

all  risks,  and  to  which  all  facts  must  be  accommodated, 
or  else  denied.  Hence,  do  what  they  will,  there  is  a 
distinction  between  themselves  and  the  cause  they  ad- 
vocate, which  cannot  fail  to  strike  the  most  ordinary 
listener  ;  their  words  no  longer  carry  the  moral  argu- 
ment {rfiiaij  nioTig)  with  them  that  they  once  did  even 
among  their  followers :  and  the  judgment  of  public 
opinion  on  them  is  that  they  are  vapid  and  destitute  of 
.  force  by  comparison.  What  people  say  of  those  gene- 
rally who  have  become  Roman  Catholics  in  England  of 
late  years,  is  that  they  have  deteriorated  as  a  body  rath- 
er than  advanced.  The  foremost  of  them  have  not  pro- 
gressed in  any  perceptible  degree — perceptible  by  oth- 
ers, that  is  beyond  the  high  standard  to  which  they  had 
attained  before,  as  their  lives,  their  writings,  and  their 
sermons  testified :  others,  every  allowance  being  made 
for  the  peculiar  trials  to  which  they  have  been  sub- 
jected, have  notoriously  descended  to  a  lower  level 
of  Christianity  since  they  became  Roman  Catholics, 
from  that  in  which  they  had  been  working  previously  ; 
and  some  have  been  driven  from  their  moorings — in  ap- 
pearance at  least — altogether.  All  this  I  hear  said ;  and 
as  far  as  my  own  experience  goes,  it  is  quite  true :  and 
for  the  life  of  me  I  cannot  infer  any  thing  else  from  it 
than  that  sacramental  grace  is  equally  derivable  from 
the  same  ordinances  in  both  Communions,  according  to 
the  dispositions  of  those  who  frequent  them,  and  is  not 
more  indefectible  in  the  one  than  the  other..  What  I 
have  seen  of  Roman  Catholics  myself,  since  joining 
their  Church,  all  points  to  the  same  conclusion.  Till  then, 
I  knew  them  only  by  report,  which,  founded  on  preju- 
dice, was  far  from  being  in  their  favour :  and  I  was 
horrified  to  find  how  shamefully  it   had  misrepresented 


63 

them.  1  found  them— I  mean  the  educated  classes— all 
that  in  a  general  estimate,  members  of  a  Christian 
Church  should  be:  God-serving,  charitable,  conscien- 
tious, refined,  intelligent:  and  I  could  discover  nothing 
idolatrous  or  superstitious  in  their  worship,  nor  anything 
at  variance  with  first  principles  in  their  daily  life.  At 
home  or  abroad  I  was  equally  surprised  to  find  them 
so  different  from  what  my  traditional  informants  had 
described  them,  with  so  much  to  admire  where  I  had 
supposed  there  was  so  much  to  reprobate.  But  after- 
wards— when  my  first  emotions  consequent  on  this  dis- 
covery had  subsided — when  I  came  to  ask  myself  the 
question,  are  these,  then,  the  only  true  Christians  that 
you  have  ever  known  in  life :  and  till  you  conversed 
with  them,  had  you  never  conversed  with  a  true  Chris- 
tian before  ?  I  can  scarce  describe  the  recoil  that  it  oc- 
casioned in  me  !  Why  my  own  father  and  mother  would 
have  compared  with  the  best  of  them  in  all  the  virtues 
ordinarily  possessed  by  Christians  living  in  the  world 
and  discharging  their  duties  conscientiously  towards 
God  and  their  neighbours,  in,  through,  and  for  Christ. 
*'  All  for  Jesus"  was  as  much  their  motto  as  it  could  .be 
of  any  parents  in  Christendom:  and  well  indeed  would 
it  be  for  all  Roman  Catholic  children  if  they  were  bles- 
sed with  no  worse  fathers  amd  mothers  than  mine. 
Then  I  have,  or  have  had,  relatives  and  friends  in  num- 
bers members  of  the  Church  of  England,  whose  homes 
I  will  undertake  to  say  are  to  all  intents  and  purposes 
as  thoroughly  Christian  as  any  to  be  found  elsewhere : 
and  it  would  be  sheer  affectation  or  hypocrisy  in  me 
were  I  to  pretend  the  contrary :  or  else  to  claim  for 
my  own  friends  and  relatives  any  peculiar  excellence 
distinguishing  them  from  average  specimens  of  the  Ang- 


64 

lican  body.  For  a  calm,  unpresutning,  uniform  stan- 
dard of  practical  Christianity,  I  have  seen  nothing  as 
yet  amongst  ourselves  in  any  country  superior  to  that  of 
the  English  parsonage  and  its  surroundings  :  go  where 
I  will,  I  am  always  thrown  back  upon  one  of  these  as  the 
most  perfect  ideal  of  a  Christian  family :  a  combination 
amongst  its  members  of  the  highest  intelligence  with  the 
most  unsullied  purity  and  earnest  faith  1  ever  witnessed 
on  earth.  It  was  a  privilege  to  have  witnessed  it.  It 
was  not  far  from  Brackley.  You  may  have  known  sev- 
eral such  yourself.  On  describing  the  **  daily  round" 
of  Christian  life  in  the  English  Church— such  as  I  had 
been  accustomed  to  from  a  child— to  the  excellent 
priest  who  received  me  into  communion  on  the  Conti- 
nent— our  family  prayers,  .our  grace  before  and  after 
meals,  our  readings  of  the  Scriptures,  our  observance  of 
Sunday,  our  services  at  church,  our  Sunday  Schools — 
what  did  he  do  but  mount  his  pulpit  the  Sunday  follow- 
ing, and  embodying  all  that  I  had  told  him  in  a  fervid 
discourse,  expatiate  to  a  fashionable  congregation  in 
Paris  on  the  many  lessons  of  piety  which  they  had  to 
learn  from  their  separated  brethren  on  the  other  side 
of  the  Channel.  ''  Such,  too,  was  our  general  practice," 
he  said  to  me  in  a  private  conversation,  *' before  the 
Revolution  :  and  we  hope  to  recover  it :  but  as  yet 
there  are  few  families  where  it  exists."  Of  my  coun- 
trymen he  observed,  '^  Leur  bonne  fol  est  acceptee  pour 
leur  vraie  foi."  I  took  this  explanation  on  trust  at  the 
time,  but  have  since  given  it  up  as  inadequate.  For  if 
it  be  said  that  faith  and  integrity  of  purpose  make 
members  of  the  Church  of  England  what  they  are  with- 
out ihe  Sacraments  in  mature  life,  by  what  argument  I 
should  like  to  know  can  it  be  proved  that  it  is  not  to 


65 

their  faith  and  integrity  of  purpose  solely  that  members 
of  the  Roman  Catholic  Church  are  indebted  likewise  for 
all  the  progress  they  make  ?  The  only  test  of  the  effi- 
caciousness of  the  Sacraments  appreciable  by  common 
sense  lies  in  their  influence  upon  conduct.  If  therefore 
it  were  capable  of  proof,  as  distinct  from  assertion  which 
it  is  not,  both  that  all  the  Sacraments  administer- 
ed in  the  Church  of  England  but  one  were  shams:  and 
all  administered  in  the  Church  of  Rome,  without  excep- 
tion, realities,  how  comes  it  that  we  are  not  incompara- 
bly more  exalted  characters  ourselves  than  we  were 
formerly :  or  that  Roman  Catholic  countries  on  the 
Continent  are  not  incomparably  more  penetrated  to 
the  core  with  Christianity  than  England  ?  Both  these 
points,  I  dare  say,  might  be  affirmed  by  some :  but 
they  are  denied,  and  I  maintain  with  much  more  reason, 
by  others :  and  therefore  at  best  it  can  only  be  the  de- 
gree to  which  the  thing  exists,  not  whether  it  exists  at 
all,  which  is  in  question. 

I  have  already  spoken  of  the  eloquent  sermon  I 
heard  preached  in  Paris,  in  which  the  Christian  practi- 
ces of  my  old  friends  in  England  were  held  up  for  imi- 
tation. The  preacher  himself  had  a  history  of  his  own 
hardly  less  eloquent.  He  had  quitted  the  cure  of  one 
of  the  most  important  churches  in  Paris  to  found  a  re- 
ligious community  for  the  purpose  of  raising  the  tone 
of  the  French  clergy.  What  had  impelled  him  ?  Sim- 
ply, the  extremely  devout  demeanor  of  two  ci-devant  An- 
glican clergymen  lately  become  Oratorians,  whom  he  had 
watched  saying  their  masses  at  one  of  the  altars  in  his 
own  church  from  his  confessional.  Certainly  they  could 
not  have  said  a  Roman  Mass  before  they  became  Jlo- 
man   Catholic   priests;   but   for   all   their  preliminary 


66 

training  in  piety  they  were  beholden  as  certainly  to  the 
Communion  which  theyhad  just  quitted;  so  that  they  who 
had  been  educated  in  Anglicanism  were  the  means  of 
suggesting  to  a  Roman  Catholic  priest  in  France  how 
much  room  there  was  for  improvement  in  the  training  of 
his  fellow  clergy.  I  have  another  anecdote  to  tell  of 
the  same  kind  from  what  happened  to  me  when  in 
Spain  much  more  recently.  I  spent  the  latter  part  of 
Lent,  including  Holy  Week,  at  Seville  ;  and  had  looked 
forward  to  the  ceremonies  immediately  preceding  Easter 
there  with  no  small  interest.  But  when  the  time  for 
them  arrived,  I  never  saw  services  more  coldly  con- 
ducted or  more  scantily  attended,  and  ceremonies  less 
productive,  in  appearance  at  least,  of  any  devotional 
feelings.  I  returned  from  them  each  time  pained  and 
scandalized.  About  the  middle  of  Holy  Week  I  fortu- 
nately had  occasion  to  go  to  my  banker's  ;  and  on  enter- 
ing I  found  a  priest  there  waiting  like  myself  to  be 
served.  Something  induced  me  to  accost  him  in  Eng- 
lish, on  his  replying  to  me  in  the  same,  we  soon  entered 
warmly  into  conversation.  He  turned  out  to  be  a  young 
priest  who  had  "  served  his  time  "  at  the  Brompton  Ora- 
tory, though  not  a  native  of  England.  I  confided  to 
him  what  I  thought  of  the  services.  He  expressed  no 
surprise:  on  the  contrary  he  dissuaded  my  going  again 
to  the  churches  I  named.  *'  Come  to  our  church,"  he 
said,  "  and  I  think  you  will  see  things  done  as  they 
ought  to  be,  and  a  very  different  style  of  congregation." 
I  went  and  found  it  all  as  he  had  told  me.  There  was 
life  in  the  services,  earnestness  in  the  celebrants,  devo- 
tion in  the  worshippers.  The  Brompton  Oratory,  that 
heart-stirring  creation  of  old  Oxford  and  Cambridge 
men,  had  sent  out  missionaries  to   evangelise^^Seville. 


I 


67 

Nobody  who  had  frequented  and  compared  it  with  the 
churches  all  round  could  dispute  its  claim  to  be  the  be- 
ginning of  a  new  order  of  things  there.  As  I  am  in 
Spain  already,  I  may  as  well  go  on.  Froin  Seville  I 
proceeded  to  a  small  village  in  the  neighbourhood  of 
the  Sierra  of  most  primitive  description.  There  I  re- 
mained several  months.  There  was  early  Mass  most 
mornings  of  the  week  :  but  I  seldom,  if  ever,  saw  any 
but  women  at  it :  and  these  rarely  more  than  from  ten 
to  twenty.  But  on  Sundays  at  High  Mass,  the  church, 
which  was  of  considerable  size  for  a  village  church, 
was  crammed  full  of  men  and  women,  the  former 
thronging  the  choir  as  far  as  it  would  contain  them, 
where  I  sat  myself.  I  took  some  pains  to  examine,  but 
I  never  could  discover  anybody,  man,  woman,  or  child, 
in  the  whole  congregation  who  used  a  book  besides  mj^- 
self :  and  whatever  may  have  been  their  inmost  feel- 
ings, which  I  do  not  pretend  to  decipher,  the  coun- 
tenances of  the  men  bespoke  nothing  but  listless  ap- 
athy. Vespers  were  invariably  attended  by  the  priest, 
one  cantor,  and  myself ;  in  all,  three,  and  to  the  best  of 
my  remembrance,  never  more.  There  were  no  even- 
ing services  of  any  description  while  I. was  there.  The 
only  spark  of  devotion  I  ever  witnessed — and  I  record 
it  with  as  much  pleasure — was  that  now  and  then  I 
used  to  see  parties  of  four  or  five  women  sitting  outside 
their  doors  in  the  cool  of  the  evening  reciting  their 
chaplet.  The  priest  was  affable  aiid  intelligent ;  and 
seemed  anxious  to  promote  education  :  but  he  was  a 
good  deal  mixed  up  in  the  secular  affairs  of  his 
neighbours  as  well :  and  the  honours  of  his  house  were 
always  done  b}^  one  who  went  by  the  name  of  his»**  cu- 
gina,"  but  I  was  laughed   at   for  supposing    it  meant 


68 

the  relationship  that  we  understand  by  it.  1  could  only 
therefore  account  for  the  average  respect  that  was  paid 
him  on  the  supposition  that  such  thinpfs  were  not  uncom- 
mon. Altogether  I  quitted  this  village  feeling  strongly  that 
there  was  certainly  not  more  real  Christianity  practised 
in  it  than  in  my  own  native  parish  in  Wales,  if  so  much  ; 
that  the  Welch  there  were  better  educated  and  more 
intelligent  in  their  devotions  beyond  comparison  than 
these  specimens  of  Andalusia,  and  that  the  clergyman 
there  could  not  at  all  events  have  a  woman  sitting  at 
the  head  of  his  table  who  was  neither  his  wife  nor  his 
relation.  Yet  this  was  a  country  that  had  remained 
exclusively  Roman  Catholic  since  its  release  from  the 
Moors.  From  the  south  of  Spain  I  proceed  to  the  gar- 
den of  France,  the  heart  of  Tourraine.  There  I  passed 
some  time  pleasantly  enough  at  a  country  house,  long 
before  T  joined  the  Roman  Catholic  Church ;  yet  I 
studied  its  workings  then  with  no  less  interest.  As 
there  was  no  Anglican  church  within  reach,  I  accom- 
panied the  family  to  the  parish  church,  from  two  to 
three  miles  off,  just  about  the  distance  of  my  own  at 
home.  Church-going  was  confined  to  Mass  on  Sun- 
days, high  or  low  :  Low  when  any  of  the  family  com- 
municated, which  was  never  oftener  than  once  a  month  ; 
High  Mass  otherwise.  This  was  the  only  public  service, 
to  which  any  body,  speaking  generally,  went  in  the 
neighbourhood:  and  that  over,  everybody  met,  gos- 
siped, and  promenaded  up  and  down  the  village  till  the 
carriages  were  ready  to  take  them  home.  This  was  pre- 
cisely the  custom  of  my  own  neighbourhood  :  but  with 
this  difference,  that  most  of  the  gentry  came  to  church 
twice  on  Sundays,  and  some  of  them  likewise  to  occa- 
sional services   during   the   week  in  Lent,  Advent,  or 


69 

Christmas  time.  There  was  one  circumstance  connected 
with  my  Sundays  in  France,  there  or  elsewhere,  which 
I  shall  not  easily  forget.  I  was  always  asked  to  the  best 
parties,  and  to  the  best  hunting  or  shooting  on  Sun- 
days :  and  being  a  keen  sportsman  in  those  days,  it  was 
no  small  act  of  self-denial  in  obedience  to  my  Anglican 
principles  to  forego  the  latter.  Well !  the  finest  ''  bat- 
tue "  to  which  I  ever  had  a  chance  of  going  was  at  an 
historic  chateau  not  far  from  where  I  was  staying  in 
Tourraine,  where,  by  the  way,  the  church  stood  just 
outside  the  grounds,  and  the  ^dy  of  the  chateau,  to  her 
credit  be  it  spoken,  attended  Mass  daily ;  the  usual 
congregation,  however,  being  herself  and  the  acolyte, 
besides  the  priest.  As  this  battue  was  on  Sunday,  I 
declined  it  equally  and  went  to  church.  Immediately 
before  the  Gospel— just  in  time  to  save  Mass,  that  is — 
a  bustle  was  heard  outside  the  building,  which  made  the 
congregation  look  up  ;  and  presently  the  principal 
actors  in  the  "  chasse "  entered,  leaving  their  guns, 
dogs,  and  game  with  their  retainers  in  the  porch,  who 
were  thus  corporally  present.  With  the  last  Gospel 
they  had  disappeared  to  resume  their  sport.  I  thought 
then,  and  still  think,  that  so  far  we  did  things  in  reality 
better  in  England  a  hundredfold,  notwithstanding  that 
appearances  were  kept  up  there.  I  could  till  a  volume 
with  anecdotes  to  the  same  effect,  all  gathered  from 
personal  experience  during  my  travels  abroad  in  most 
parts  of  Europe  and  round  the  Mediterranean  ;  but  I 
can  only  find  space  here  for  one  more,  which  I  select 
from  the  point  of  comparison  still  being  with  my  own 
native  parish  in  m!les.  This  parish  was  a  Vicarage, 
from  which  the  Incumbent  drew  £150  a  year  or  there- 
abouts, and  a  dignitary  of  the  Mother  Church   of  the 


70 

diocese  £1100  or  £1200  a  year.  The  Ecclesiastical 
Commissioners  have  since  removed  this  grievance — a 
practical  grievance  it  was — and  have  subdivided  the  par- 
ish. Passing  one  summer  at  Porto  di  Fermo  when  it 
"was  Papal  territory,  I  frequented  the  church  there jwhich 
was  always  well  attended  by  both  sexes,  on  week  days 
as  on  Sundays,  and  was  greatly  edified  by  the  earnest- 
ness and  devotion  of  the  parish  priest.  I  inquired  what 
his  salary  w^as,  and  was  told,  and  if  I  remember  right 
he  confirmed  it  to  me  with  his  own  lips,  that  it  amount- 
ed to  no  more  than  £80  or  two  thousand  francs.  The 
Cardinal  Archbishop,  some  of  the  parishioners  told  me 
with  much  warmth,  was  in  the  enjoyment  of  w^hat  we 
should  call  the  great  tithes :  "  and  we  never  see  him," 
they  added,  "  except  as  he  passes  to  or  from  his  vilJge- 
giatura  in  the  neighborhood  where  he  spends  his  vast 
wealth."  I  cannot,  of  course,  vouch  for  the  entire  ac- 
curacy of  their  statements,  I  only  know  that  they 
described  it  as  a  gross  abuse:  and  were  themselves 
amongst  those  most  constant  at  church.  Possibly,  this 
grievance  may  not  exist  now. 

To  come  to  my  conclusions.  The  conviction  impress- 
ed upon  me  by  what  I  have  heard  and  seen  at  home 
and  abroad  is  that  English  Christianity — by  w^hich  I 
mean  that  of  members  of  the  Church  of  England  in 
general,  I  cannot  speak  from  experience  of  any  other — 
is  as  good  and  genuine,  and  for  ordinary  purposes  as 
beneficial,  as  what  is  found  in  other  nations — France, 
Spain,  and  Italy,  for  instance — so  that  either  it  is  pro- 
duced, fed,  and  nourished  by  all  the<6acraments,  as  theirs 
is :  or  else,  produced,  fed,  and  nourished  by  a  single 
Sacrament,  it  penetrates  society  and  forms  character  to 


71 


the  same  extent  as  that  which  has  the  support  of  all  the 
Sacraments,  and  is  no  less  efficacious  for  good  in  most 
other  respects.  It  may  be  isolated,  but  such  is  the  po- 
sition of  England  politically  as  well  as  geographically : 
its  peculiarities  are  of  a  piece  with  the  national  charac- 
ter, itself  having  its  weak  as  well  as  its  strong  side :  its 
shortcomings,  historically  traceable  to  the  sins  of  our 
forefathers  in  no  small  degree.  Among  the  strong 
points  attributable  to  its  influences  are  a  strong  love  of 
honesty  in  intention,  of  truthfulness  in  language,  and  of 
uprightness  and  manliness  in  conduct :  and  a  still  strong- 
er abhorrence  of  falsehood  and  treachery  to  engage- 
ments in  every  form.  Its  virtues  belong  mostly  to  the 
practical  and  domestic  order.  Its  weak  points  are  too 
great  self-reliance,  too  much  disposition  to  criticise,  too 
little  faith  in  the  Unseen.  As  a  general  rule,  Roman 
Catholics  are  weak  where  Anglicans  are  strongest,  and 
strong  where  Anglicans  fail.  Such  results  are  due  to 
the  system  in  each  case,  shewing  imperfections  in  each. 
Anglicans  may  be  compared  with  Roman  Catholics  in 
this  country,  as  boys  brought  up  at  a  public  school  in 
England  with  boys  brought  up  at  a  private  school  or 
else  at  home.  Anglicans  may  be  compared  with  Roman 
Catholics  abroad  as  men  educated  at  Oxford  or  Cam- 
bridge with  men  educated  at  the  Universities  of  Pa- 
ris, Munich,  or  Padua.  Fundamentally,  their  faith 
and  practice  is  the  same ;  but  they  have  been  formed 
after  different  models  in  both.  I  trust  the  day  is  not  far 
distant  when  the  religiously  minded  in  both  Commun- 
ions will  iii^ist  on  associating  together  as  brethren,  and 
learning  from  each  other  as  Christians,  and  combining 
for  works  of  charity  without  distinction  of  nations. 
Too  long — much  too  long — have  they  been  kept  in  ig- 


72 

norance  of  each  other,  and  thus  prevented  improving 
each  other,  through  prejudice.  The  two  points  on  which 
alone  I  notice  any  sensible  difference  between  my  own 
devotional  practices  in  former  days  and  now,  are  pray- 
ing for  the  souls  of  the  departed  and  invoking  the  saints 
in  glory.  Both  practices  I  can  unhesitatingly  pro- 
nounce from  experience  to  be  full  of  comfort  and  profit, 
of  elevating  and  purifying  influences :  I  am  sorry  for 
those  who  live  in  ignorance  or  neglect  of  them  :  and  I 
can  hardly  imagine  any  person  who  has  tried  them  in  a 
spirit  of  faith,  honestly  abandoning  them.  Still  every 
fresh  page  I  read  of  Church  history  in  the  14th  and 
15th  centuries  convinces  me  more  and  more  of  the 
awful  profanity  that  had  attached  to  both  in  those  days, 
and  as  even  in  the  Roman  Catholic  manuals  of  devotion 
I  use  myself  there  are  frequent  hyperboles  of  language 
that  I  could  never  adopt,  and  should  desire  to  see  can- 
celled above  all  things,*  I  cannot  consider  the  excessive 
caution  of  the  Church  of  England  altogether  directed 
against  a  thin^  of  the  past,  and  without  excuse  now. 
Words  employed  in  non-natural  senses  are  dangerous 
stumbling  blocks  in  any  Communion.  Our  own  litur- 
gical offices  were  carefully  weeded  at  the  time  of  the 
Council  of  Trent,  and  contain  no  such  extravagances. 
It  would  be  well  if  we  were  never  on  any  pretext  allowed 
to  exceed  their  measured  language  in  our  private  forms. 


*  I  instance  but  one  such,  p.  29  of  our  Vade  Mecum,  "  0 
holy  Virgin  Mary,  Mother  of"  Mercy,  preserve  me  this  night  from 
all  evil,  whether  of  body  or  soul."  The  meaning  of  course  is, 
"Pray  God  to  preserve  me."  How  much  more  would  it 
have  cost  to  have  had  this  pr'nted  in  full:  or  how  much 
longer  time  would  it  take  to  say  1  I  must  add  that  I  con- 
stantly hear  sermons  [up  and  down  England]  on  S.  Mary 
that  are  little  more  than  legends,  drawn  from  the  Apocryphal 
Gospels,  or  no^better  source. 


I 


73 

Neither  our  liturgical  forms,  indeed,  as  they  now  exist, 
any  more  than  our  private  forms,  embodying  such  devo- 
tions, were  known  to  the  primitive  Church :  and  there- 
fore the  lack  of  them  in  the  Church  of  England,  how- 
ever much  to  be  regretted  on  all  accounts,  cannot  affect 
the  essence,  though  it  may  impair  the  tenderness,  of 
the  Christianity  taught  and  imbibed  there.  I  am  there- 
fore satisfied  that  the  Christianity  taught  and  imbibed 
there  differs  in  no  fundamental  quality  from  that  with 
which  I  have  been  conversant  since  joining  the  Roman 
Communion.  T  am  morally  certain  that  I  have  fre- 
quented the  same  Sacraments  in  both  with  profit :  con- 
sequently I  feel  that  I  could  die  equally  well  in  the  one 
or  the  other:  and  can  see  no  reason  for  changing  from 
one  to  the  other  except  on  secondary  grounds,  or  unless 
driven  to  it.  "  When  they  persecute  you  in  this  city'* 
— of  Israel^  that  is — "flee  ye  into  another"  was  not 
said  for  the  Apostles  alone.  In  conclusion,  it  is  my  firm 
persuasion  still — indeed  much  more  so  than  in  1853, 
when  I  published  my  first  book* — that  should  Christen- 
dom ever  be  re-united,  it  will  go  down  to  posterity  as 
having  been  brought  about  mainly  by  those  who  had 
been  born  and  educated  in  the  Church  of  England. 

With  these  convictions,  it  may  seem  superfluous  in 
me  to  add  my  belief  that  having  been  ordained  priest 
in  the  Church  of  England,  T  am  a  priest  still.  But  I 
desire  to  state  this  explicitly  because  of  the  disparage- 
ment lately  cast  upon  Anglican  Orders  on  general 
grounds  by  a  great  name  amongst  us.  To  the  historical 
argument  he  will  have  nothing  to  say :  therefore  I  will 
only  remark  on  it,  that  having  examined  it  thoroughly, 
I  am  as  convinced  of  its  tenableness  as  of  anything  of 


*Called  the  "  Counter-Theory,"  pp.  212—223. 


74 

the  kind  in  Church  history.  And  as  to  the  form,  on 
which  he  is  equally  reserved,  I  can  only  say  that  either 
the  Anglican  ordinals  in  use  now  or  formerly  must  be 
allowed  adequate,  or  else  most  of  the  primitive  forms — 
to  say  nothing  of  those  still  used  in  the  East — must  be 
pronounced  inadequate.  On  jurisdiction,  I  need  not 
reiterate  what  I  have  said  already,  or  am  about  to  say. 
"  Who  is  the  custos  of  the  Anglican  Eucharist  ?  "  is  his 
chief  difficulty.  "  Could  T,  without  distressing  or  offend- 
ing an  Anglican,  describe  what  sort  of  custodes  they — 
the  Anglican  clergy — have  been  and  are  to  their  Eu- 
charist?" My  Lord,  it  is  anything  but  my  intention  to 
excuse  or  extenuate  the  scandalous  irreverence  that 
prevailed  shortly  before  our  own  days,  and  I  fear  is  not 
extinct  yet,  amongst  Anglican  clergymen  in  administer- 
ing the  Sacraments  of  the  Church :  but  I  cannot  shut 
my  eyes  to  the  fact  that  it  followed  naturally  from  their 
low  views  of  them,  and  that  their  low  views  of  them 
were  precipitated  by  the  audacity  that  centuries  ago 
was  not  afraid  to  say  of  the  Eucharist,  *'  Sacerdos  . 
creat  Deum;"  of  penance,  "Deus  remittit  culpam: 
Papa  vero  culpam  et  pcenam,"  and  the  like.  But 
taking  our  own  views  of  the  Blessed  Eucharist  into 
account,  is  there  or  has  there  been  any  tale  of  irreve- 
rence towards  it  amongst  Anglicans,  comparable  for 
horrors  with  the  history  of  poisoned  chalices  and  pois- 
oned Hosts  amongst  ourselves  formerly,  the  extent  of 
which  is  made  patent  to  this  day  by  the  epecial  pre- 
cautions taken  whenever  the  Pope  celebrates  Mass, 
most  solemnly,  that  no  such  harm  may  befal  him— 
"  Avant  qu'il  arrive"  —I  am  quoting  from  a  well-known 
precis  of  the  ceremonies  at  Easter  in  Rome — "  on  a 
coutume  de  faire  Vepreuve  des  especes  de  la  maniSre 


75 

suivante :  Le  Diacre  prend  une  des  trois  hosties  qu*!!  a 
mises  en  ligne  droit  sur  la  pateine  et  la  rend  au  Prelat- 
Sacriste.  Quand  celui-ci  I'a  recu,  le  Cardinal-diacre 
prend  de  nouveau  Tune  des  deux  qui  reste :  et  apres 
ravoii*  fait  toucher  interieurment  et  exterieurement  au  ca- 
lice  et  a  la  patene,  il  la  consigne  au  Prelat-Sacriste,  qui 
doit  la  consommer  aussitot,  ainsi  que  la  premiere,  le  vis- 
age tourne  vers  le  Pape.  Le  troisieme  et  derniere 
hostie  est  employee  your  le  sacrifice.  Le  Cardinal 
prend  les  burettes  du  vin  et  de  I'eau,  en  vers'  un  peu 
dans  la  coupe,  que  lui  presente  le  Prelat-Sacriste,  dont 
de  dernier  doit  boire  immediatement  le  contenu."* 

Such  perversion  of  the  life-giving  Sacrament  to  des- 
troy life,  as  had  to  be  specially  guarded  against  in  this 
way  whenever  the  Vicar  of  Christ  pontificated,  is  abso- 
lutely without  parallel  in  the  annals  of  the  Anglican 
Church  since  the  Reformation.  So  that  notwithstand- 
ing our  high  views  of  it,  the  worst  known  profanations 
of  it  have  been  amongst  ourselves.        ^ 

T  admit  that  up  to  the  time  of  my  inquiring  into  the 
true  causes  of  the  earlier  schism  between  the  East  and 
West,  I  was  not  prepared  to  look  upon  the  position  of 
the  Church  of  England  as  favourabl}^  as  I  do  now :  be- 
cause I  regarded  it  as  the  effect  of  schism — wilful  and 
deliberate  schism — on  her  part  in  separating  from  the 
Communion  to  which  she  had  been  so  long  bound,  and 
over  which,  with  the  full  concurrence  of  her  clergy  and 
laity  for  ages,  Rome  ruled  supreme.  I  expressed  this 
unhesitatingly  three  years  back  in  the  first  part  of  my 
book,!  and  am  far  from  intending  to  retract  all  that  I 
said  then  :  but  having  since  discovered  the  general  sys- 


*  L^mn^e  Liturgique,  p.  158. 

t  Christendom's  Divisions,  pp.  198-223. 


76 

tern  of  Church  government  in  which  England,  in  common 
with  all  other  Western  nations,  had  up  to  that  time  acqui- 
esced, to  have  been  based  upon  forgeries,  and  opposed  to 
the   genuine  code  of  the  Church,  I  as   unhesitatingly 
recognize  the  right — nay,  the  duty  paramount — of  every 
local  Church  to  revolt  against  such  a  concatenation  of  spu- 
rious legislation  as  this,  and  scattering  to  the  winds  every 
link  of  the  false  chain  that  had  enthralled  it  hitherto,  to 
return  to  the  letter  and  spirit  of  those  genuine  canons, 
stamped  with  the  assent  of  the  whole  Church,  and  never 
repealed.     Supposing  this  done,  even  the  act  of  S.  Au- 
gustine and  his  companions  in  establishing  the  jurisdic- 
tion of  the  patriarch  of  the  West  over  this  island  is  found 
illegal,  having  been  declared  null  and  void  by  anticipa- 
tion in   the   eighth  Canon  of  the   Council  of  Ephesus 
already  quoted  :  "  So  that  none  of  the  bishops  most  be- 
loved by  God  do  assume  any  other  province  that  is  not, 
or  was  not  formerly  and  from  the  beginning,  subject  to 
him,  or   those  jvho  were  his   predecessors.  .  .  .  But  if 
any  one  introduce  a  regulation  contrary  to  the  present 
determination,  the  Holy  General  Synod  decrees  that  it 
be  of  no  force."     It  is  idle,  or  worse  than  idle,  to  assert 
that  S.  Augustine  found  England  subject  to  Rome  when 
he  arrived  :  and  it  is   quite  true  that  he  accomplished 
its  subjection  two  centuries  and  a  half  or  more  previ- 
ously to  the  publication  of  the  pseudo-decretals  ;  but  it 
is  no  less  true  that  its   subjection  was  accomplished  in 
the  teeth  of  this  canon,  as  well  as  of  the  protest*  of  the 
native  episcopate  that  he  found  in  possession.     It  may 
well  be  doubted  whether  S.  Gregory  was  ever  properly 
made  acquainted  with  their  prescriptive  claims :  in  any 

*  Given  in  Cave,  Church  Govt.,  p.  251,  from  Spelman's 
Concil.  Brit.,  a.  d.  601. 


77 

case,  what  was  then  eSected  with  his  sanction  was  pre^ 
cisely  what  S.  Leo  the  Great  informed  the  East  the 
canons  would  not  allow  of  his  conceding  to  the  Con- 
stantinopolitan  patriarch  Anatolius  at  the  fourth  Coun- 
cil. The  wily  forger  of  the  pseudo-decretals  had  his 
eye  upon  all "  such  "  accomplished  facts"  in  the  West 
when  he  compiled  his  code,  and  either  founded  his 
maxims  upon  them  or  else  sought  to  legitimatise  them 
by  the  high  authority  which  he  claimed  for  his  maxims* 
Both,  therefore,  necessarily  belong  to  the  same  category : 
neither  can  one  possibly  stand  without  the  other.  Ang- 
lican divines  have  long  cited  this  ordinance  of  the  Coun- 
cil of  Ephesus  in  proof  of  their  canonical  independence 
of  the  jurisdiction  of  Rome  :  but  they  ou'ght  in  fairness 
to  have  acknowledged  themselves  at  the  same  time  bound 
by  the  Sardican  canons,  that  British  bishops  assisted  in 
passing,  admitting  and  regulating  appeals  to  the  Pope. 
This,  T  conceive,  will  be  found  to  be  the  true  limit  of 
what  is  due  to  the  Pope  from  England,  according  to  the 
genuine  law  of  the  Church.  The  primatial  See  of  Eng- 
land, whether  at  Caerleon  or  elsewhere,  was  originally 
independent  and  autocephalus,  and  never  should  have 
been  made  amenable  to  his  jurisdiction  as  patriarch, 
whether  for  consecration  or  any  similar  purpose. 

I  am  well  aware,  my  Lord,  that  this  last  inference  of 
mine  must  cut  at  the  very  root  of  your  position  in  Eng- 
land, should  it  prove  correct :  but  as  I  have  lived  in  the 
investigation  of  these  questions  for  the  last  twenty 
years  and  upwards,  you  will  scarce  accuse  me  of  being 
influenced  by  personal  considerations  in  getting  to  their 
final  solution.  On  the  contrary,  my  wish  is  to  give  eve- 
rybody the  fullest  credit  for  a  sensitive  conscience  that 
I  claim  myself.  Neither  is  it  against  individuals  nor  yet 


78 

systems,  but  abuses  and  perversfons  of  systems,  that  I 
wage  war.  When  I  was  in  the  enjoyment  of  a  Fellow- 
ship at  Oxford,  we  were  all  living  in  the  hourly  neglect 
of  statutes  which  every  one  of  us  had  sworn  to  observe, 
and  I  was  one  of  those  who  demanded  that  either  those 
statutes  should  be  repealed  formally,  or  else  kept  hon- 
estly. Still  as  our  breaches  of  them  had  accumulated 
gradually,  and  become  law  insensibly,  how  could  I  have 
laid  the  blame  of  them  on  the  existing  or  immediately 
preceding  generations  of  Heads  and  Fellows,  and  revil- 
ed them  as  unprincipled  or  dishonest  men  ?  In  the  same 
way  I  mean  neither  disrespect  nor  disaffection  to  the 
living  authorities  of  the  Roman  Catholic  Church,  when 
I  draw  attention  to  the  undeniable  fact  that  they  are 
daily  violating  the  law  of  the  Church.  What  I  criti- 
cise has  been  the  work  of  centuries,  commenced  ages 
since,  and  what  all  of  them  together,  were  they  ever  so 
righteously  minded,  could  not  possibly  change  all  at 
once,  still  less  make  perfection.  Again,  w^hat  I  criti- 
cise is  not  the  faith  of  the  Popes,  but  their  governmen- 
tal policy,  and  that  only  since  they  became  temporal 
princes  as  well  as  bishops,  and  not  before.  Their  court 
and  see  having  beeft  all  one  for  practical  purposes 
since  the  establishment  of  the  former,  it  would  be 
vain  to  attempt  drawing  the  line  between  them,  espe- 
cially as  it  is  their  joint  action  upon  the  Church,  not  upon 
empires  or  men  in  general,  to  which  the  verdict  of  his- 
tory is  most  adverse.  I  am  well  aware,  and  have  fre- 
quently spoken,  of  the  services  rendered  by  Rome  to  the 
nations  of  Europe,  morally,  socially.,  and  religiously,  in 
promoting  their  civilization,  in  many  respects  a  most  up- 
hill task  ;  and  for  these  I  am  inclined  to  think  there  are 
some   arrears  of  gratitude   still  due    to   it  from    Eu- 


79 

rope,  and  perhaps  never  likely  to  be  settled,  though  I 
suppose  none  benefited  more  largely  by  their  achieve- 
ments in  the  middle  ages  than  the  Popes  themselves.  But 
when  I  contemplate  the  divisions  of  Christendom,  past 
and  present,  and  search  history  for  their  origin,  I  find 
it  is  the  conduct  of  the  Popes,  more  than  anything  else, 
for  the  last  thousand  years,  in  governing  the  Church, 
which  has  divided  the  Church.  First  of  all,  they  allow- 
ed crowned  heads  to  tamper  with  the  Creed  of  the 
Church,  if  not  to  the  unsettling  of  her  faith,  at  least  to 
the  dividing  of  her  household.  Secondly,  they  allowed 
a  spurious  code  to  be  brought  into  gradual  use,  without 
troubling  themselves  to  refer  to  their  own  archives  for 
proofs  of  its  origin,  and  ultimately  to  overlay,  and  be 
taken  for,  the  genuine  laws  of  the  Church.  Thirdly,  they 
countenanced  one  part  of  the  Church,  then  in  a  minor- 
ity, making  war  upon,  and  taking  possession  of,  not 
merely  the  temporalities,  but  the  ecclesiastical  revenues 
and  sees  of  the  other  part  of  the  Church,  then  in  a  ma- 
jority, to  the  ruin  of  Christianity,  and  triumphing  of  the 
Crescent  over  the  Cross  in  those  parts  eventually, 
whence  the  Gospel  had  first  sped.  They  countenanced 
all  this,  because  it  brought  gain  and  aggrandisement  to 
themselves  and  to  their  see,  conformably  with  the  max- 
ims of  the  false,  but  in  opposition'to  the  maxims  of  the 
true  code.  Fourthly,  as  I  have  proved  elsewhere,* 
they  put  off  reforming  the  Church  in  their  own  patri- 
archate by  fair  means,  till  Providence  permitted  that  it 
should  be  done  by  foul.  Such  is  the  verdict  of  history 
upon  their  conduct  as  Church  governors  since  they  be_ 
came  princes.  I  am  far  from  pretending  to  have  brcught 


*  Christendom's  Divisions,  Part  I.  pp.  128^153. 


80 

to  light  any  facts  that  are  not  well  known,  though  I  may 
have  grouped  them  together  in  one  focus. 

This  being  the  case,  my  Lord,  I  ask  how  it  is  that 
there  is  cot  the  slightest  allusion  to  these  facts  in  the 
invitations  which  have  been  issued  to  the  forth-coming 
Council  ?  Home  has  spoken  :  but  I  can  discover  noth- 
ing in  what  she  has  said  like  a  confession  of  sins,  or  of 
the  justice  of  God  in  punishing  them — expressions  of 
regret  for  the  past,  or  promises  of  amendment  in  future. 
All  Christendom  has  gone  astray  save  she.  Of  all  in- 
stitutions, the  Popedom  alone  stands  erect :  has  never 
erred  on  any  subject  whatever,  has  never  been  other- 
wise than  what  it  is  now  :  has  preserved  its  integrity, 
as  well  as  its  faith,  unsullied.  It  alone  has  never  caused 
divisions,  or  driven  Christians  into  revolt :  it  alone  has 
never  done  anything  for  which  it  has  cause  to  blush  or 
repent.  "I  am  and  none  else  beside  me  ...  I  shall  be 
as  a  lady  for  ever  :  I  shall  not  sit  as  a  widow,  neither 
shall  I  know  the  loss  of  children." — Babylon  loquitur, 
non  Jerusalem.  Three  hundred  years  ago  there  was  a 
Pope  who  spoke  differently,  and  told  men  the  truth. 
With  what  general  applause,  and  sympathy  of  the 
good  and  earnest  in  all  lands,  would  such  candour  as  his 
have  been  reciprocated,  had  it  been  copied  in  what  we 
have  just  heard  !  ''You  will  also  say,"  continued  Adrian 
VI.  to  his  legate,  "that  we  frankly  admit  that  God  has 
permitted  this  judgment  to  fall  upon  His  Church  for  the 
sins  of  men,  chiefly  priests  and  prelates  of  the  Church 
.  .  .  We  know  that  in  this  holy  seat  there  have  been 
many  enormities,  now  for  some  years  past,  and  abuses 
in  spiritual  things,  excesses  in  what  has  been  ordained, 
all  things  in  short  perverted  .  . .  Wherefore,  it  is  neces- 
sary that  we  should  all  give  glory  to  God,   and  humble 


81 

our  souls  before  Him,  and  see  each   one  of  us  from 
whence  he  hath  fallen." 

An  invitation  to  a  general  humiliation  might  well 
have  preceded  invitations  from  the  Pope  to  any  Counc  il 
for  re-uniting  Christendom.  Again,  in  inviting  people 
to  a  Council  for  that  purpose,  was  it  wise  to  insult 
them  ?  The  Easterns  are  adjured  to  come  to  it  as  their 
predecessors  came  to  the  Councils  of  Lyons  and  Flor- 
ence :  but  to  each  of  these  councils  the  authorities  of  the 
Eastern  Church  received  a  formal  invitation,  designa- 
ting them  by  their  respective  titles,  and  at  the  Council 
of  Florence  sat  and  deliberated  with  Western  bishops 
upon  equal  terms  :  nor  was  it  till  they  were  gone,  that 
deputies  from  the  descendants  of  Ubretical  bodies — 
Nestorian  or  Monophysite — were  introduced.  All 
bishops  of  the  Eastern  rite,  no  matter  what  their  ante- 
cedents, are  placed  in  the  same  category  by  Pius  IX.  : 
for  what  purpose,  unless  to  deter  the  most  considerable 
from  coming,  it  would  be  difficult  to  say.  In  the  same 
way,  non-Catholics,  that  is  to  say,  non-Roman  Cath- 
olics, are  treated  as  a  rabble  without  guides,  a  flock 
without  shepherds,  indiscriminately :  as  though  all  had 
been  equally  bereft  of  organisation,  and  all  alike  were 
devoid  of  intelligence.  Yet  part  of  this  rabble  has 
lived  under  episcopal  government  for  300  years,  and 
every  endeavor  was  made  to  get  bishops  sent  from  it  to 
the  Council  of  Trent,  and  it  knows  something  of  the 
controversy  between  it  and  Rome,  to  say  the  least. 
Then  what  of  its  mighty  offshoots  in  the  New  World 
and  in  the  Colonies  ?  Altogether  the  latent  *'  animus  ** 
that  unprejudiced  persons  would  be  likely  to  detect  in 
both  invitations  is,  that  they  shoilld  be  declined — de- 
elined  in  order  that,  the  Council  being  confined  to  those 
6 


82 

beholden  to  the  Pope  for  their  mitres,  his  prerogatives 
might  be  vsecured  against  losing,  even  if  they  should  not 
gain,  anything  by  its  meeting. 

int  is  otherwise — if  Rome  is  sincerely  bent  upon  re- 
uniting Christendom — the  whole  thing  lies  in  a  nutshell^ 
and  is  in  fact  already  done.  Two  maxims  honestly  car- 
ried out  would  alone  suffice  for  re-uniting  Christendom. 
The  first  is  ancient  and  well  known  :  "Nullum  tempus 
praescribit  EcclesiaB."  This  is  apt  in  general  to  be  ap- 
plied to  Church  lands  and  endowments.  It  must  apply 
with  infinitely  more  force  to  Church  laws,  accepted 
everywhere,  that  have  never  been  repealed.  No  mere 
desuetude  can  make  them  null  and  void.  The  other 
maxim  has  recerftly  been  chosen  in  this  controversy  for 
their  motto  by  a  learned  body,  to  whom  I  am  never  tired 
of  confessing  my  obligations,  the  Society  of  Jesus  in 
England — "Peace  through  the  truth."  If  they  will  only 
bring  their  immense  influence  to  bear  in  enforcing  this 
maxim  wherever  falsehood  is  proved,  one  of  the  first  con- 
sequences will  be  that  the  False  Decretals,  and  all  that 
has  been  founded  on  them,  will  go  to  the  wall.  I  have 
already  quoted  the  opinion  of  their  learned  brethren  on 
the  other  side  of  the  water,  to  the  effect  that  this  spuri- 
ous code  supplanted  the  discipline  that  had  reigned 
paramount  in  the  Church  up  to  that  time,  and  is  the 
basis  of  the  discipline  that  reigns  now.  Let  it  be  repu- 
diated honestly,  therefore,  and  the  ancient  discipline  of 
the  Church  will  once  more  be  revived  in  full  force.  Let 
us  see  what  effect  this  would  have  on  the  divisions  of 
Christendom.  First,  in  accordance  with  the  dogmatic 
canon  appended  to  the  definition  of  the  4th,  5th,  and 
6th  Councils,  the  Nicene  Creed  would  cease  to  be  used 
in  any  but  the  form  in   which  it  existed   then.     I  need 


83 

hardly  remind  your  Lordship  that  as  it  existed  then 
the  article  in  dispute  was  couched  in  Christ's  own 
words :  ''Who  proceedeth  from  the  Father" — His  words 
that  we  have  presumed  to  improve  upon  in  the  form 
we  use — By  returning  te  them,  we  should,  in  reality, 
be  but  deferring  to  Him.  This,  alone,  would  do  away 
with  the  principal  ground  of  strife  between  the  East 
and  West.  Secondly,  Rome  would  be  confined,  for  or- 
dinary jurisdiction,  to  the  original  bounds  of  her  patri- 
archate according  to  the  8th  canon  of  the  Council  of 
Ephesus,  in  other  words,  to  the  Continent  of  Europe : 
but  she  would  receive  appeals  from  England  and  the 
rest  of  the  West  according  to  the  Sardican  canons.  Ap- 
peals from  the  East  would  be  carried  to  Constantinople, 
in  conformity  with  the  9th  and  17th  canons  of  the  Coun- 
cil of  Chalcedon.  Thus  the  principal  ground  of  strife 
between  England  and  Rome  would  be  removed  on  the 
one  hand,  and  all  intermeddling  by  Rome  with  the 
affairs  of  the  East  on  the  other.  Latin  patriarchs  of 
Greek  sees  would  be  out  of  the  question.  A  General 
Council,  with  the  Pope  in  the  first,  and  the  Patriarch 
of  Constantinople  in  the  second  place,  would  be  the  last 
resort — as  the  African  bishops  told  Pope  Celestine  was 
the  true  purport  of  the  Nicene  canons — for  all  alike- 
Thirdly,  what  is  of  infinitely  more  importance  to  Chris- 
tians generally,  desirous  of  living  in  peace  and  charity 
with  their  brethren  all  the  world  over,  no  profession  of 
faith  would  be  required  from  any  seeking  to  be  admitted 
to  Communion  in  any  Church,  but  the  Nicene  Creed, 
according  to  the  solemn  import  of  the  canon  with  which 
we  commenced.  When  it  was  passed,  all  the  modern 
controversies  on  grace  had  been  anticipated  by  the  fol- 
lowers of  Pelagius,  and  there  had  been  questions  raised 


84 

about  the  sacraments  and  rites  of  the  Church  similar  to 
those  amongst  which  we  live.  And  still  the  language  of 
that  canon  is  most  emphatic — "Those  coming  oyer  from 
whatsoever  heresy  to  the  communion  of  the  Church,  are 
to  be  made  to  subscribe  to  the  Nicene  Creed  and  no 
other."  The  Creed  of  Pius  IV.  might  be  retained  as 
discipline  for  the  clergy,  but  it  could  no  longer  be  im- 
posed on  the  laity.  Plain  Christians  might  therefore 
traverse  the  world  with  no  other  passport  to  the  Sacra- 
ments of  the  Church  in  all  lands  than  the  Nicene  Creed. 

Christendom  is  one  before  God,  and  de  jure^  so  long 
as  these  laws  form  part  of  the  code  of  the  Church,  and 
are  not  repealed.  It  is  only  disunited  defacto^  because 
they  are  infringed,  and  the  executive  of  the  Church  is 
indifferent,  or  else  a  party,  to  their  infringement.^  If 
Rome  is  really  the  executive  of  the  Church,  as  she 
claims  to  be,  is  really  desirous  of  unity,  she  has  nothing 
to  do  but  bestir  herself  to  bring  herself  and  all  others  to 
observe  the  laws.  I  have  heard  some  persons  assert 
positively  that  she  will  never  be  capable  of  this  effort 
till  she  has  been  both  disestablished  and  disendowed. 
May  they  be  false  prophets  I 

I  have  the  honor  to  be. 

My  Lord  Archbishop, 

Your  obedient  and  obliged  servant, 
E.  S.  F. 


>'A  03963 


Fs 


UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA  UBRARY 


